HOWELL – The author visits at Taunton Elementary School allow students to peek behind the curtain and get an in-person look at the creativity that these authors have. In addition, these visits often inspire the students to dream big and start writing stories of their own.
Last year, the students met Jerry Pallotta, author of the “Who Would Win?” series. This year, Chris Grabenstein, best-selling author of the “Mr. Lemoncello’s Library” series and many other award-winning books for younger readers, came to the school to share his creative process for writing with the students.
Taunton Principal Booke Napoli showed her enthusiasm in a statement about the event.
“Author Visit Day is one of my favorite days of the school year! There’s something magical about seeing our students’ reading and writing come to life when they hear directly from an author about the creative process. It inspires them in a way nothing else can,” she said.
The effort to bring in the authors is split between school officials and the school’s parent teacher association, which is comprised of volunteers who put in hours of hard work to make these events possible. A large portion of the activities that the students partake in are possible because of the countless hours that volunteers dedicate to improving education for their children. PTA President Kim Zapata shared her organization’s belief that it is important to support literacy.
“We help bring reading to life all year long – from author visits that inspire the students to sending a book home with every child during Read Across America Week,” she said. “We also help fund our Book Fairs, The RazKidz reading program, and Scholastic News Subscriptions for every classroom. When we encourage reading, we’re empowering the students – and that’s something to celebrate!”
In this case, the author visit days have already started to inspire young students to write books for themselves, as two Taunton students, Maya Kaufmann and Melanie Vega, have already authored and illustrated their own book. “The Hidden Drawing” is now available at the school’s library.
However, the author’s visit day wasn’t all about reading. Students also explored STEM concepts through hands-on activities inspired by some of the books they read. After reading a fractured fairy tale version of The Three Bears, students were challenged to use the engineering design process of brainstorming, planning, building, testing, and improving their work to design a chair for Goldilocks that wouldn’t break. This event encouraged the young inventors to think like real engineers and gave them a break from the normalcy of school by giving them a hands-on experience.
Author visit day is just one of the many unique approaches that Taunton Elementary School is taking to enhance its educational program. According to Taunton teacher Skye Donzelli, it is the goal of Taunton’s media center to use stories to spark curiosity, foster an environment where creativity thrives, and help students learn that a great idea can be found in any book.
