I’m offering two optional add-ons for a more personalized author visit with your school:
Q&A
Sometimes students really engage in the question-and-answer period I do at the end of in-person author visits. It’s their chance to be heard, to make a connection, or to learn more about a particular book or poem or about some aspect of the writing or publishing process. The Q&A can happen one of two ways:
- Lunch & Chat Live Q&A: For this live option, we agree on a time for a Zoom meeting. You choose which students will participate, and I host the meeting and answer questions and chat with students as we all eat lunch. At least one staff member needs to participate and facilitate student access to the microphone, etc.
- Recorded Q&A: For this video option, you gather student questions right after my author visit. You email me the typed questions, sorted by grade level. I create a video just for your school of up to one-hour in length, answering as many questions as I can get to. When I send the link to the private video, I’ll also send timings so that teachers can easily find just their grade’s questions and answers.
Feedback on Student Writing
One of my favorite things about in-person visits is writing with students, both in creating group poems during grade-level sessions and writing individual poems in classroom workshops. I love to encourage young writers and point out the awesome things they’re accomplishing in their writing–things they might not even have realized. This is also generally one of the students’ favorite parts of the visit–being heard and being acknowledged and praised as a writer. Even though I can’t with your students in person, I can still offer kids the gift of hearing their work praised. You’ll email me typed student works, and I’ll read them aloud and respond briefly to each in a video of up to one hour. This will work best with short pieces like poems or paragraphs, and, of course, it will be extra meaningful if I’m responding to work inspired by my writing prompt. I can give feedback on group pieces or individual pieces. I can generally respond to 30-45 short pieces in an hour. If you are sending equation poems, I can respond to 60 or so in a one-hour period.