Sarah Weeks spent the day at my school yesterday and it was a fabulous success. The building was buzzing! You know an assembly is going well when the face of nearly every seventh and eighth grader is focused on the speaker. For anyone uninitiated to life in middle school, this is BIG! Getting their attention for ten minutes, let alone nearly an hour is really hard! Some of the feedback I got from my own sixth, seventh and eighth grade classes today was: "She looked really comfortable talking with us." "She told really funny stories." "I loved how she finds story ideas!" "It was good to hear that she has to revise."
Sometime in the middle of last school year, two sixth graders came in looking for the book, So B. It. I had one copy that, surprisingly, was on the shelf. They both grabbed it and had a short tug-of-war over the book before appealing to me to solve the issue for them. I'm no Solomon, but suggested that one take Save Me a Seat and then, they could swap. One of them then asked if I could get Sarah Weeks to come to visit and the other echoed her request, punctuating it with little hops and a pleading face. I thought, "Hm, I haven't had an author in a while. Sarah's a school favorite. I always use her book, Pie, to teach the NoveList database to fifth graders, which usually results in a waiting list for the book. Why not?"
It couldn't happen last school year because Sarah's schedule was pretty booked. She also teaches and, understandably, needs time to write. When she sent me available dates in September, my birthday happened to be one of them so I gave myself a birthday present and picked that date for the visit.
Let me tell you the most important secret to a successful author visit. You, your teachers and your kids must read at least one book by the author! Believe me, it makes for a better experience for everyone when the kids are invested. They listen more attentively and they ask more thoughtful questions during the Q & A. Now, Sarah Weeks could've walked in off the street any day and had a successful visit because her presentation skills are outstanding. Seriously, if you are looking for an author to inspire your students, check out Sarah Weeks. And because she does a lot of school visits, she's pretty seasoned. There's a fantastically informative page on her web site devoted to school visits that covers every thing you need to do to make it successful.
Another element to a successful visit is getting the teachers on board, especially the LA teachers. That was absolutely no problem because each and every one of them have books by Sarah in their classroom libraries as well. Each and every face lit up when I proposed having her come for the day. You have to understand that sometimes it is difficult to disrupt the day's schedule for an assembly. No one hesitated. When the LA chair and I were brainstorming what Sarah's three sessions would look like, we thought the teachers might benefit from some PD advice on teaching writing from a pro. So they met with Sarah in the library. (See pics below.) We are so grateful to our principal for making that happen. That was a lot of coverage! We're also grateful to administration for allocating funds for the visit.
Once we had all the permissions and date set, we promoted Sarah's books like crazy in the last weeks of school last June. We encouraged every student to choose one of her titles for their summer reading. Our teachers do not assign titles for summer reading. We encourage choice whenever possible. We have the expectation that reading will get done over the summer and compliance is pretty high.
I was lucky to receive help from a PTO mom who handled author visits at the elementary school (where they have more visits). It was a relief to hand over the paper work to her and I am forever grateful. The forms went out the first day of school and needed to be back the following Monday to enable Books, Bytes and Beyond time to place and receive the books. In middle school, book sales are always tricky, partly because students have to get that flyer home to mom and dad. Thank you Mrs. B.!
If you ever have the opportunity to host an author, consider Sarah Weeks. Also, if you live in an area where the independent film production of her book, So B. It is releasing, consider attending. Sarah brought some Soof bracelets and everyone wanted one. The stampede of students nearly mowed my poor parent-volunteer down! They were gone in a trice and there were many disappointed students.
This morning, I decided to raffle off my bracelet and my principal agreed to add his to the raffle. To enter the raffle, the student needs to create his or her own "soof," take a photo, and print it out. I will put them around the school and library and send pics to Sarah. I wish I thought of that as a way to get a bracelet!
These were two that I created. The Lego Soof is on our Lego makerspace. The glass stones were made on my counter with stones from forcing bulbs last spring.
This is sixth grade LA teacher, Ms. A's teacup soof:
I stole the following off of Sarah's Facebook page: author Kate DiCamillo's pasta soof and author Barbara O'Connor's mealworm soof.
What are you waiting for? Read the book. See the movie. Make your own "soof!"
How much do I love this post? Soo(f) MUCH.
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