Common School Visit Mistakes and How To Fix Them, with Melissa Taylor
And **SURPRISE** I wrote a book!!
From the Writing Desk:
SURPRISE!!
I wrote a book hehehe.
BIG NEWS, SMALL WORLD is part of the HarperCollinsUK Big Cat scholastic series, with twenty books coming out on April 28th in the UK that all look absolutely incredible.
BIG NEWS, SMALL WORLD is a book for older chapter book readers set during the Vietnam War. It’s about a young girl named Lily who has Turner syndrome, and who decides to create a newspaper to celebrate the people and stories from her own community, like the soldier next door who’s just come home from the war very different than when he left. Lily hopes that even though she’s small and the world is so big, listening and telling this soldier’s story will make a difference, even if its a small one.
I wrote this last year, which was quite a creatively dry year for me. For some reason, in the midst of that desert, this story just…flowed. I haven’t had an easier or more natural or more fun time writing a story in a long time. It came out quickly, with very few issues, which is pretty much never the case. I was and am very grateful for this little story being my creative oasis in an otherwise very dry and frustrating time.
Also, holy cow am I obsessed with the stunning black and white graphic illustrations by Linh Nguyen-Glen.
I am a very lucky writer.
Other than that, this last month I’ve been:
Plugging away on the new draft of my adult novel. It’s coming along!
Brainstorming, pitching, drafting, collaborating, pondering etc about what my next kid lit project is going to be
Fleshing out and revising a second draft of my speculative midlife rom com script hehe
What are you working on?
Onward!
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Common School Visit Mistakes and How To Fix Them, with Melissa Taylor
In the world of kid lit, school visits are our bread and butter. But the thing is, a lot of us writers aren’t trained teachers and educators. We’re not experts at classroom management and entertaining rowdy elementary schoolers and reticent preteens.
But…we can be! We have help!
Melissa Taylor is an author, an education blogger & writer, a children’s book expert, a former award-winning bilingual teacher with an M.A. in Education, a former literacy trainer for teachers, and a passionate advocate for literacy, representation in children’s literature, and high-quality education. She’s taught ESL, bilingual kindergarten, bilingual 4/5, 4th, and 5th grades, and coached teachers in K-12 grades, so she really knows what she’s talking about.
Basically, she’s an expert at helping writers level up their author presentations to something really engaging and exceptional. And she’s here to give us her advice! (And seriously, it’s incredible advice.)
Welcome, Melissa!
1. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see authors make in their school visits?
Two major things I see often that could be improved are the following:
- Not noticing when the crowd is squirmy and talkative--and continuing to talk over them. (Better would be to stop, use the quiet signal, and THEN, go on when the crowd is quiet again.)
- Boring presentations that talk AT the kids. Kids do not want to sit and listen to you drone on about your childhood hopes and dreams, let alone hear your life story to the present moment for 40 minutes. (Better would be to bump up the interactiveness and to block your presentation in shorter chunks of 3-20 minutes, depending on the ages, with games, activities, and storytelling, and keep the back story to a minimum.)
2. What is a tweak authors could make to their current presentation that would take it to the next level?
Add interactive elements to your read aloud. Read slowly and stop at every page to ask questions and show the pictures, aka. engage with the audience. Do a call and response if you have a refrain that repeats. Have the PreK-1st graders search for items in the illustrations. Basically, you're trying to make the read aloud experience fun and participatory -- even with a large group. (I'd also recommend putting the individual pages on slides.)
3. So many authors' presentations are about the process of writing or how they came up with the ideas for their books, etc. (Guilty!). Is this a good presentation topic? What school visit topics work even better?
Sorry, no. You need to go beyond your life story to not bore kids, and also to provide educational value. Both being exciting and educational will get you asked back and referred to other schools. Plus, giving students more educational value than your life story justifies your prices.
Most kids don’t want to hear your life story for 40 minutes. Maybe five or ten. Not 40. The backstory of a book, while interesting to avid fans, shouldn’t take up too much time either. (Although both can be launching points for teaching something else like ideation and growth mindset.)
Plus, teachers like it when you're exciting, inspiring students, and providing value that students can apply to their lives.
Better, more engaging ideas for your school visit include:
Interactive games and activities around your book(s)’s theme or topic (SEL, science, nature, curiosity)
Interactive writing activity (ideation, character creation, sequential storytelling)
Readers theater (add puppets and costumes)
Storytime with participation (search and find, call and response)
4. We want our presentations to be engaging, right? But what does that look like when presenting to an elementary school class versus a middle school class? Are the strategies and best practices different between those two?
In a former life, I trained teachers in K-12 grades and found that good instructional practices are the same across all the grades. You want to say what you're going to teach, model what you're talking about, be clear in your examples and instruction, scaffold the instruction step by step, and have a quick way to assess if the kids understand.
Yes, you'll pace things differently for a kindergartner than you would for a middle schooler who can listen and work for longer. You can't be sarcastic with the littles (or you'll make them cry) but middle schoolers love it! Personally, I'd take our Kinders out of any large group presentations and do a shorter presentation (20 minutes max) with them with different activities. You will be glad you did. These kiddos will love lots of movement, singing, and silliness. (And no, I wouldn't charge extra for this 20 minutes.)
As far as pacing for elementary grades, I recommend activity blocks of 5-10 minute chunks. (10 minute read aloud. 5 minute game. 10 minute interactive activity. That sort of thing.) You can double the time chunks (10 - 20 minutes) for middle schoolers if the activity calls for that length of time.
Connect with me at my websites MelissaTaylor.net or ImaginationSoup.net, melissa@imaginationsoup.net, or on Instagram or Bluesky.
Thank you so, so much Melissa! This is so unbelievably helpful and practical, and I know the students we visit will be better for it. Make sure you check out Melissa’s website, Imagination Soup, and keep an eye out for her upcoming books!
What I’m Reading:
On the kid lit front, I read and was absolutely delighted by a backlist title from a well-established writer. Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry is the sweetest, most delightful thing I’ve read in a while, and the illustrations are amazing too.
On the adult front, I’ve been reading The Life Impossible by Matt Haig, and it’s lovely and unlike anything I’ve read in a long time.
What I’m Watching: As usual, my BritBox extension on Amazon is completely blessing my life and I’m flush with cute, adorkable, socially awkward, middle-aged British detectives and that’s all I’m really looking for in life.
So…go watch McDonald and Dodds and Ludwig like…right now.
Draw people quickly and simply: I watch a lot of drawing tutorials while I eat lunch and this one was really fun and seemed simple to follow. Plus I really like his style.
Also come hang out with me and my author friend P.J. Gardner while we talk all things writing and creativity!
What I’m Drawing: Sometimes we feel like a mouse, and sometimes…not.
Also check out the bookish swag I’ve got up for sale in my new little swag shop!
"This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it."
―Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Writing Opportunity: Trollbreath Magazine is accepting speculative fiction and poetry! Due April 30.
Teacher’s Table
Some goodies especially for the teachers:
Don’t miss this NPR article about why Louisiana’s readers are thriving right now.
Everything needed to get your young writers started is here in Tools Not Rules: A Writing Guide for Young Creatives.
Free activity sheets for teachers and librarians to keep at your desk or use in or between lessons! More added all the time, so check back regularly. I recently added this one about how to write a limerick!
I would love to do a free virtual author visit with your class! Reach out to me via my website and let’s schedule something.
You guys are rock stars!
Thanks for coming along everyone! The best way to support is to 1) subscribe, 2) get a copy of the book bebes, and 3) keep glowing, you shining star you.
-Sarah
Such great ideas!
A quick tip for presenters who have a rowdy kid in front of them: Cover up the mic, give the rowdy kid a concerned look, and whisper "Are you okay?" That will usually stun them into silence for a few minutes.
Loved this! I feel like with school visits you also just get better in time. I cringe at some of my earliest school visit memories (luckily, most were free...) because I just really had no idea what I was doing or what the point of the day was.