Most teachers ask themselves, “How can I motivate my students to want to read and write more?” One of the best answers to this common problem is to have a children’s author visit your school. The effects can be immediate and long-lasting. Children often want to read all the books in the library by that author, and even better, are often inspired to write their own books. In this article, we will 1) share some advice about how to arrange an author’s visit and 2) share children’s comments about what they learned from the author’s visit, (analyzed by frequency of response).

Inspiration for an author’s visit

The teacher was spellbound while listening to Janie Panagopoulos, a children’s author, speaking at the March 2001 Illinois Reading Council (IRC) Reading Conference in Springfield, Illinois. The author was

describing a bookkeeper who poisoned various loggers in a logging camp in the 1800s. The woman’s crime never came to light. How did Janie know about it, you ask? While researching financial record of that camp, she found notes written by the murderess and hidden in the pages of that record. The notes contained a journal of the deeds done in secret. After doing months of research about logging in the 1800’s, Janie wrote a book for children about the topic (Journey Back to Lumberjack Camp).

Needless to say, she did not include the murders in her book for children. Never mind. The teacher was hooked. When the teacher found out that Janie did school visits and talked about writing to children, arranging for Janie Panagopoulos to visit her school became the teacher’s passion. Janie Panagopoulos researches all of her historical children’s novels by interviewing experts, collecting oral histories, living in similar settings, and participating in action events included in her stories, such as riding on dogsleds, sailing aboard historic vessels, etc.

The Process of Securing an Author to Speak

The steps to achieving the goal of booking Ms. Panagopoulos to visit our school and other schools nearby unfolded rather smoothly. First, while still at the IRC conference, the author Janie Panagopoulos was asked in the spring of 2001 if she would pencil us into her calendar for four days in Oct. of 2002. She agreed to do so. In the fall of 2001, the teacher began fund raising for the big event. A grant was written for this purpose and submitted to IRC for partial funding for the visit. IRC awarded a grant of $1000. After the grant was approved, in January of 2002, other nearby schools were approached and offered an author visit for half of the cost they would normally be expected to pay. Four additional schools and a Monmouth College professor were interested in an author visit. A local business was also approached and it agreed to provide a generous gift of $500. In addition, two Regional Offices of Education donated money for books written by the author so it would be possible for children to read her books before the actual visit. Other funds came from the Western Illinois Reading Council (WIRC), a local council of the IRC.

After fundraising was completed, it was a matter of scheduling Ms. Panagopoulos’ time so that each school would receive an author visit. Schools at which she spoke included Astoria Elementary, Lincoln Intermediate in Monmouth, Roseville Elementary, V.I.T. Elementary in Table Grove, Yorkwood Elementary, and Monmouth College. In addition, Ms. Panagopoulos spoke to the general membership of the WIRC and their guests at their monthly meeting in Macomb. WIRC officially sponsored the event. When the actual “Author’s Week” arrived, all went smoothly, thanks to the cooperation and help of people in the various schools who were sponsoring the author event. Careful planning and coordination, including travel directions, lodging, and meals-some with local teachers-all helped to make this a well-coordinated even for speaker and audience alike. The school librarian put the author’s books out in special displays and read excerpts of her books to all of the children on library visits.

Classroom teachers also read her books to the children in advance of the visit, so they were familiar with some of the author’s works. The children were encouraged to read her books on their own.

When Janie Lynn Panagopoulos arrived at our school (V.I.T. Elementary School), she did two small group writing workshops, one for children in 3rd and 4th grades and another for children in 5th and 6th grades. Children had to agree to write something in order to be able to attend the writing workshops with the author. These workshops were limited to twenty-five children. Later, she did a big assembly for all the children in the school. The demographics of this school are that it is a small (240 total enrollment in grades K-6), rural school in a downstate agricultural region of Illinois.

The children’s ISAT scores indicated that writing was an area in which the children needed improvement. The children were thrilled to hear a real author speak to them, and the ones who attended her writing workshops were especially motivated to write themselves. One of the teachers put up a bulletin board entitled “What Janie Panagopoulos Says about Writing” and then noticed numerous children stopping in the hallway to read what it said. Two months after the author’s visit, the children were asked to voluntarily write a paper on the topic: What I learned from the Author Visit. There was no credit given for this report, as it was strictly voluntary, but almost a third of the population of the school children, including children receiving Special Educational and Title 1 services, did write a summary of what they had learned from the author’s visit to their school two months before. Their responses are summarized in this paper. Analysis of the children’s responses to “What I learned from the Author Visit”.

The authors of this article analyzed the responses of the 5th and 6th graders who had attended the writing workshops, other children in the school who had attended the assembly, and the contents of thank you notes that some children had sent to the teacher who organized the author visit.

The school had approximately 240 children in grades kindergarten through sixth grade with forty-four per cent of the children at the school receiving free or reduced lunch. Written responses about the author visit were received from sixty-five of the children. The children’s responses were categorized according to topics that the children mentioned in their letters. The following categories emerged:

The most frequently stated idea that the children learned from the author’s visit was actual information about how to write. Thirty-two, which was half of the children who responded, mentioned this. They specified how they had learned more about how to describe things, such as characters, and learned how to have a beginning, an ending, and, in general, how to make their writing interesting. We were impressed at the level of specificity and number of details that the children remembered two months after her visit. Some of the responses related to this topic included.

The children all seemed to enjoy the author visit. They noted lots of the things they had learned, but the also couldn’t resist playing the part of the critic. One child said this:

One of the outcomes desired from an author’s visit is an increased desire among the children to write things themselves. It was very gratifying that the second most frequent response made by the children to the question “What did you learn from the author’s visit?” was that they were inspired to write a story and to consider becoming an author. Fifteen of the children (35%) mentioned this in their notes written two months after the author visit.

The third most frequent response of the children (15 responses out of 65, or 35%), was that the author told them how to write biographies of famous people, such as Abraham Lincoln, and how to research topics. They were totally fascinated with such inside information as how pioneers used to go

to the bathroom.

Another frequent response to the author’s visit that the children wrote about was the importance of persistence. They really picked up the message that even if writing seemed hard at first, they should keep trying and it would become easier. Some of their comments included:

About ten per cent of the children (6/65) mentioned that they learned that it is a good idea for people to keep a journal or diary. Some of the Children’s responses included:

Even though not many people mentioned this topic (2/65), a few children pointed out that they had learned from the author how important it was to go back over what you had written and make revisions. Often, this is one of the hardest things for young children to learn about writing. They want their first draft to be their final draft.

Having a real author make a school visit really motivated the grade school children of this rural community to take great interest in reading and writing. We were impress that two months after the author’s visit, over a fourth of the student body voluntarily wrote a paper about what they had learned form the author visit. Instead of mentioning some vague pleasure at having an author visit, the children filled their papers with incredibly specific details about what they had learned and how they were applying the information that the author had shared with them. The effects were not limited to those top performing children who were already interested in writing.

Some of the lowest performing children, including those receiving Special Education and Title 1 Services, were some of the ones most influenced by the author’s visit. One previously reluctant child writer noted,

“I liked Janie because she said you must go to college for a couple of years before you can become a writer. She made me want to become a book writer. I started making books. One of these days I may write a book about Janie P. I hope I become a good writer like Janie. She taught me a lot about writing books.” Zeb.

The children were all incredibly motivated to do more writing themselves after the visit. As another example of how things were different after the author visit, each year the students in grades Kindergarten through 6 are invited to participate in a regional writing celebration. Each grade is allowed to submit up to five entries for this event. Last year, before the author visit, five children in the entire school actually submitted entries for this writing event. This year, teachers have reported that 53 students have said that they were going to enter the writing celebration. Since the entries are not due yet, we don’t have a final count of the number of students who actually follow through and submit their writing, but it certainly appears that it will be a much larger figure than the year before.

One of the fifth grade teachers in the building reported that in previous years, when the writing contest was announced, there were often groans, and indifference shown by the students. However, this year, the children broke into spontaneous cheers when they heard the announcement for the writing celebration and the children immediately started discussing their writing plans with each other. One teacher stated “This year, the whole classroom atmosphere is charged with energy when it comes to writing.”

Throughout the school, the children feel capable of writing and excited about doing it, whereas in past years, it was just something that was expected by the teachers, with little choice from the students. As another example of children being motivated to write after the author visit, one child in the school was inspired to write a poem. She wrote a whole folder of poems and stories and then submitted one of them to a poetry contest. Her poem is now going to be published. As two other students said after hearing the author speak to the school,

 “Stretch your imagination. Write a story. If you can imagine it, you can write about it.”

“You should do lots of things. If you can do it, then you can write about it.”

Shelby and Rachel.

When teachers ask how to help their students become better writers, they often think that the answer must be to have the children spend more class time writing. However, research has shown, and interviews with famous authors collaborate the fact, that the best way to learn how to write is to read a lot. Children need to have lots of raw material taken in, written in correct “book language,” in order to have the correct mix of ingredients to be able to make a book themselves. You really cannot expect children to write in isolation, if they have not had lots of models of what other people have written about. It is commonly said, you must write about what you know. Hearing authors tell children their personal experiences that led to them writing an entertaining book is profoundly inspirational. Children realize that they, too, have had interesting experiences in their lives that they could share with others, not only through conversations, but also via writing.

The experience of having an author (in this case, Janie Lynn Panagopoulos) makes a personal visit to a grade school and talk about how she researches and writes her stories, was profoundly motivating to these rural Illinois schoolchildren. They really listened carefully to all of her advice and are trying to implement her suggestions in their own writing. It has really changed the atmosphere in the whole school concerning the joys of reading and writing. The students now have a “can do” attitude and renewed confidence regarding their abilities to write. The after-effects of this author visit have really been inspiring to observe and document. As one child noted in her letter,

As this student noted, an author’s visit can be extremely motivating to students. Nothing can beat a live visit. However, if this is impossible, there are some possible modifications that can still bring some of the benefits of an author’s visit to a school.

Another Illinois teacher from another school, Ms. Diana Goff, shared with us the information that wonderful motivating effect can still be had with various modifications on the Author visit. She was able to arrange a phone call to her class from the children’s author, Jan Brett, who wrote The Mitten and many other award-winning books. She found that just letting her first-graders talk with the author on the phone and being able to question her was wonderfully motivating to them. They read every book of hers they could find and then began writing take-off books of their own, based on the format of some of her stories. They paid careful attention to the drawings the author/illustrator had added to the margins of the book and noticed all kinds of things that they had never even been aware of before. Although a real-life author visit is best, it is nice to know in these times of tight budgets and difficult travel, that even “media” visits with an author can also have such inspiring outcomes for our students.