Tips for a Great Author-Visit to Your School

Spring at last, and with it, many teachers begin to think about inviting an author to their classrooms. They know how a visit from a "real live" author can both excite and inspire students. It can stimulate a desire to read in even the most reluctant kids, and provide an opportunity to build other skills as well - letter writing, creative thinking, research. The possibilities are limitless!

Hooray! It's Spring!

I've done hundreds of school presentations in the course of my career, and seen time and time again how teacher preparation makes all the difference. No matter how polished or perfect my presentation is,  I can't actually make it great alone. A bit of advance planning on the part of my school partners turns a ho-hum hour into a learning extravaganza.

So if you are thinking of bringing in an author to your school or library, here are some tips I've gathered over the years for making the event terrific. And in tight budgetary times, don't you want to get the most out of the dollars you spend? Of course you do!

TEACHER-TIPS FOR
MAKING YOUR AUTHOR VISIT
AWESOME

• Send home a letter to parents announcing the upcoming visit. 

The letter can include a list of books by the author and a book list and/or order form. If the parents are informed and excited about the author, the child will be too.

(Side note:  When I book a school visit, I  provide a confirmation letter with the date, price and other particulars spelled out, as well as a parent's letter template that teachers can easily adapt.)

• Consider whether or not you wish to give students the opportunity to purchase books either through advance order or on the day of the event. 

While this may not be appropriate for your school, keep in mind that if students go home with a book after they've met the author, you've just  set up the ideal conditions for creating an enthusiastic reader. If you will be allowing kids to buy books, leave 15 minutes between presentations for kids to get their books and have them signed.

•  Ensure that teachers or parent volunteers will be available to remain in the room and to be active participants during the entire event.

One of the hardest situations for visiting authors is when they are expected to give a bang up presentation and maintain class discipline at the same time. I think I can safely say that I'm a 'pro' at doing school presentations - I've been doing school and library presentations, now, for 15+ years.  I've learned during that time how to both read and 'manage' an audience, whether it is composed of restless kindies or rambunctious grade 8s.

Yet even so, there are times when even the best performance techniques, by the most experienced presenters, don't work. Usually it's because the adults in the room are not performing their roles effectively.

It's painfully obvious to the author when teachers consider our sessions to be "break" time.  It's obvious to the kids too. If they see their teachers talking, grading papers, or working on a lap top during the presentation, they are getting the not-so-subtle message that the author is not worth listening to. No wonder the kids act up.

That puts the author in the difficult situation of having to stop the presentation until order is restored, or calling out misbehaving students. Now, the whole aim of the presentation - making books and literacy fun! - is undermined, and replaced with a squiggly feeling in the pit of the stomach (and not just in the author's!). 

If we work together, though, we can achieve much more positive results. Make sure all the adults who will be present - teachers and parents - know what they will be responsible for. They are expected to: maintain class discipline, focus and stimulate student questions, and model appropriate active listening behavior.  

•   Make sure there are several copies of the most appropriate titles for your school in the library. 

Your teacher-librarian should show the books to the students ahead of time, and encourage them to take them out since they will be meeting the author. 

• A 'Countdown to Author Day' over the PA system is also a good way to build excitement (and build number and calendar skills to boot!)

•   Teachers whose classes are attending the presentation should take the time to familiarize themselves with the author's work in advance. 

Imagine how the author feels when a teacher comes up to them, after a presentation, and says, "What's your name again? I should probably look up your books."  (Yes, this happens.) Now imagine how much opportunity the kids in that teacher's class have lost. 

Kids dressed up like characters from my books

A mural of Loons Canoing in the office!

•  Use some of the author's books to do some cross-curricular activities with their class.

Doing research in class? Have students research the author on line. Learning about haiku or punctuation? Read some poetry or the first chapters of a novel and see how it relates to classroom activities. For PE or science lessons, play a game or do a science experiment related to the book. The possibilities are endless. (You will find some lesson ideas related to my books on the Teacher’s Page of my website at www.helainebecker.com.) 

•  Encourage kids to develop their own writing skills by writing their own letters of introduction to the author.

To stimulate critical thinking skills, have kids also craft questions which they may ask during the presentation.

Follow up by the presentation by having kids write thank you letters or their own stories or poems (or illustrations of favorite scenes or poems). 

These can be emailed to me at Helaine@helainebecker.com. 

• Younger kids can get involved by drawing pictures of what they think "the famous author" will look like! 

I've seen some fabulous crafts readied in advance of my visits: Carmen Miranda's fruit hats, choreographed dances to Mama Likes to Mambo, handmade books, rumbling, bumbling bees on springs, welcome banners, board games based on Boredom Blasters and more. 

Kids who engage in exciting, relevant book-related activities ahead of time are the ones who get the most out of my visit. They are more focused during the presentation, ask better questions, and elicit the most enthusiastic, and energized performances from the visiting authors.

Teachers, too enjoy the presentations more and wind up with a great 'hook' to hang other class activities on.  A successful author visit is a win-win for everybody. 

Why Information Should Not Be - Cannot Be - Free

The National Post printed an article early this week about the ongoing battle regarding copyright and what constitutes 'fair usage" in Canada. Universities, such as York, no longer feel they need to pay writers for work used for "educational purposes." I'm wondering if  Michael Geist, the law professor at the University of Ottawa quoted in the article, would like to donate his teaching time since it's also for "educational purposes?"

This (only partly) facetious comment brings us to the crux of the matter.

Access Copyright is a collective of publishers and writers (and yes, I am an affiliate) - real people, not Borg or ants or government functionaries. The organization  manages licensing for reproduction rights to our work, and provides an important source of revenue for us. But Access Copyright has been forced into a corner. We don't want to sue universities. We love universities, and elementary schools, and libraries - all the public institutions that we rely on to keep us all educated.

But we writers simply can't afford to create work that we will not be paid for. Nor should we be asked to do so. If Professor "Information Must Be Free" won't pay for the use of our work, we will not make it available to him or anyone else.

This is already the sad case in Canada. Our children's publishing industry, which is vibrant and productive and brings tons of money into our economy, is threatened not only by the digital revolution and globalization, but by people who don't understand that writers are not public servants. We are entrepeneurs. We only make money when our books and articles are SOLD. And then, we earn only a fraction of the cover price of a book as royalties.

Schools and libraries are a big part of our business, especially for those of us who write mainly for children. Access Copyright and its licensing arrangements were set up to correct the imbalance that happens when single books are purchased by institutions who then photocopy them for entire classrooms, year after year. Licensing fees recognize the inherent value of our work, and the fact that reproduction technology robs us of legitimate income. 

But what happens if institutions decide not  to pay us for fair use of our materials? Then that market effectively evaporates - poof!

When a market disappears, so does the rationale for producing goods and services for it. Would Gilette produce razors for hairless people? No. Would coffee shops exist if no one liked caffeine? No. So how many Canadian writers and publishers do you think will produce books for Canadian schools and libraries if we can't get paid for them?

How about a big fat zero?

That's already what's happening. There's been a "chill" on Canadian subjects for kids books for the last few years as uncertainty about revenue simmers.

In the meantime, writers like me start focusing on topics we can sell internationally, where we can sell both more print and digital copies of our works. This may one day to turn out to be a boon for me - perhaps I'll wind up selling even more books overall. But it won't be so hot for Canadians, especially Canadian school kids, parents and teachers. What books will students learn Canadian history from? What sources will tell them about great Canadians? What stories will they see themselves reflected in?

None. If Access Copyright loses its legal and moral rights to collect money for my works from users, I'll be writing books set in "Chicago," not Toronto. And writing biographies of American heroes, American history, American scientific advances.

So to those who think this issue is a cash grab by a faceless corporate or government entity, think again. You're taking money from educators whose role is just as important as the teacher who uses our books, articles, etc. in the classroom. Most of us aren't rich. Taking away our livelihood does not help taxpayers, it justs shifts the expense to the welfare rolls, - a less fair, less efficient, and certainly less intelligent model than paying us for our work is.

To read the article in the Post, click here. You'll see my comment there too (a slight variation of the letter that appeared in the print edition of the Post this morning).

Please put your own comments on the Post site so our voices are heard!