School Visits
Click to download Katie’s visit packet.
What happens when Katie visits a school?
- The students will get very excited about reading, writing, and the creative process and they’ll get more out of it because your school prepared them, so they are more invested in the visit.
- They’ll treasure the books they take home from the book sale because of that investment, and that love of books will ripple out to include other books.
- Teachers and parents will cry shamelessly because they forgot to send in their book order forms and then they’ll ask if you any books left and you will say yes because you’re so smart and you ordered extra.
Hosting an author visit is one of the best things you can do for your students because it connects kids to books in a much more powerful way than simply reading them; it gives kids an appreciation of the process that creates the books they love; it offers kids the opportunity to interact with a professional author/illustrator, thereby modeling this possibility for the kids; and it significantly forwards literacy efforts. To top it all off …it’s fun!
I can alter or create my presentation to your needs but the following are descriptions of the skeleton of what I do for students of all grades, from kindergarten through high school. Obviously, each presentation is appropriately tailored to the audience’s age group!
Writing workshops involve brainstorming, plotting, descriptive narrative, and character development. Though better suited to smaller groups, a modified version of the writing workshop can be accommodated in an assembly.
Poetry workshops are a collaborative experience, with students working together to create a community poem, like the Surrealists invented with their “exquisite corpse” at the turn of the 20th century.
Illustrating workshops teach kids how to see so they’re able to illustrate any story the write. Even better, it can get them writing “through the back door.” That is, students become connected to their character through their drawings first, and then write a story incorporating them.
Katie’s Videos
