Although I was very excited when my novel Lost on the Prairie was published in May of 2021 one thing that disappointed me was that COVID made it almost impossible for me to visit classrooms to talk about my novel with kids.
With a lifting of many COVID restrictions and my novel’s nomination for the Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award I am hoping I can start visiting classrooms to talk about Lost on the Prairie.
In order to facilitate that I’ve put together three different kinds of presentations I could offer to schools.
In the first one The Writing Journey I help students understand the process of writing by exploring ways to get ideas for writing, do research for writing, develop your own style of writing, work with others to improve your writing and be intentional about celebrating your writing.
In the second one Doing Research I discuss how conducting interviews, going on field trips, investigating scientific information, looking at documents and historical materials and considering artifacts can inspire writing and enrich it. I give tips and ideas for doing each kind of research.
The third workshop Lost on the Prairie Book Club is designed specifically for classes where the teacher has read aloud Lost on the Prairie or the class has used it for a novel study.
I’ll be focused on the children’s questions and wonderings about the book but will also tell them more about myself as an author, provide a timeline for the writing of the novel, talk about some of the mistakes I made or almost made when writing it and what people have had to say about it.
The first teacher who contacted me about visiting her classroom wanted to pick individual topics from all three of the presentations that would connect with things she has planned for in the coming school year with her students. That was great!
The workshop outlines are just jumping off points and I am happy to custom design a workshop that fits each individual class and their interests.
Lost on the Prairie does have a comprehensive teaching guide included at the back of the book that offers lots of hands on activities for students and is linked to the middle grade language arts and social studies curriculum outcomes for the western provinces.
And of course I am open to doing virtual presentations for classrooms in other provinces.
Please feel free to contact me and we can work out the details of a classroom visit.
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