Author Study Fun

Do you conduct author studies in your classroom?  In the past, author studies were a totally foreign concept to me, but I have to admit that I recently became slightly obsessed!  Author studies don't have to include loads of prep time or even lots of teacher knowledge about the author.  Let the students do the learning!

Take note of an author that students seem to enjoy, or ask the Media Specialist for suggestions, then check out every single one of that author's books from the library!  It's the "Find the books, and they shall come" theory.  ;)  Once students see the giant stack of books, their excitement and curiosity steers the project.

 

Buddy reading works really well for author studies, because students naturally enjoy talking about similarities between books they read.  My students simply use their independent reading time in the morning and during Guided Reading to read these books.  After a few days of independent and buddy reading of the author's books (or longer if the author writes novels rather than picture books), I give my students this "Find Someone Who Has Read" activity.  Students roam the room, searching for students that have read each of the books on the page (all written by our author study author, of course).

Afterwards, students buddy up to talk about two of the books they've both read.  They use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the books.

Finally, after loads of lively verbal discussion and note taking, students write 2 paragraphs comparing and contrasting two of our author's books. The writing is always top notch, because of all of the discussion that has taken place prior to this activity.







And there you go!  Author studies can be as simple as that.  You can really do a mini-author study every week. In fact, that's what I'm planning, so I created author study activities for 14 of my favorite children's book authors.

I'll link them here in case you also have a love for author study fun!  :)

Aliki
Byrd Baylor
Chris Van Allsburg
Cynthia Rylant
David Shannon
Dr. Seuss
Eric Carle
Eve Bunting
Jon Scieszka
Judy Blume
Mem Fox
Patricia Polacco
Roald Dahl
Steve Jenkins
Tomie dePaola

Man, I love this little baby.

This SCOOT Pre/Posttest answer document was born out of a desire to document student learning to show students the progress they were making.  Some of them have NO IDEA how much they are learning and improving!  I set out any set of task cards and have students write in their answers on the left had side.  We then grade it together and graph the PRE side of the Pre/Post graph.  At the conclusion of our unit, I fold the left side of the paper back  few times to hide their previous answers, and then students take the SCOOT assessment again.  They record their answers on the right side this time, we grade it, and then graph the new number correct.  It's so exciting to watch students realize how much they've learned and improved their score!

A happy realization after the fact was that it would also work beautifully as evidence of learning and assessment for my teacher evaluation.  (Nothing like the productive feeling of killing two birds with one stone!)

Text Structure Bookmark Freebie!

It seems to me that text structure questions come up an awful lot on standardized tests.  I prepare my students with these mini bookmarks.  Students use them to identify the text structure in their book (or a stack of books that I dump on their group’s table during whole class activities).

Print, cut apart, and give each student or group their own set.  Laminate for longer life and reuse again and again!

Make it a game!  Students love the challenge of finding one of each type of structure.