Meeting Katherine Applegate

One of my favorite books this year has been Wishtree by Katherine Applegate. You can read my post about Wishtree here. Katherine Applegate has also written the Newbery winning, The One and Only Ivan as well as Crenshaw (and many, many more). When I found out that Katherine Applegate would be in St. Louis I knew I HAD to be there.  She gave a talk about her newest picture book, Sometimes You Fly, answered questions, and signed books.

Here are some of my thoughts from her talk-

• Even people who are really talented sometimes feel unsure about themselves.- Ms. Applegate told the story about how she was very unsure of herself as an author. She started her career as a ghostwriter. When she tweeted back a response to my class she said, " I was a ghostwriter when I started out, but the first big thing I published under my own name was the ANIMORPHS series (with my husband, Michael). I'd already been out of college for about 10 years! Let's just say there were a lot of tries before I did anything close to flying."
• Anything worth doing will probably be difficult.- Katherine also told a story about how she almost stopped writing when she was half way through the manuscript of The One and Only Ivan. Can you imagine? She was ready to throw away the manuscript!!! This title went on to win the Newbery Medal. Kids and adults all over the world have loved reading the touching of Ivan, and when writing got difficult, Katherine kept going. 
• Katherine Applegate connects with readers.- The day after the book signing I was talking to my students and showing them the books signed by Katherine Applegate. They were all so excited and wanted to hear more. I tried to remember all the stories she told during her discussion, but my students still had more questions. They suggested that I tweet out their questions. So I did, and Katherine Applegate tweeted us back. We were able to use social media to connect students to a favorite author. 

Proud as a Peacock

I had the privilege to share the Blogger platform with teachers from the St. Charles School District today. It was so amazing to share a little bit about my blogging journey, explain the Blogger platform a little bit, and watch as the teachers started working.

I was challenged in a keynote from George Couros to stop spoon-feeding teachers (and students). He suggested to let students do the exploring and the learning.  So I tried it. I gave the workshop participants a little bit of instruction, and then I let them explore. I let them struggle through the exploration and learning. I was a little shocked by what happened...everyone worked. Everyone explored. Everyone tried. Teachers helped each other. The room had an eerie quiet and a buzz of creative energy. The tap, tap, tapping of computer keys was music to my ears.

I'm proud to introduce you to the first of several blogs that came out of our session. They all have different stories to tell. Take a peak at the Aaron's blog...

• Stcharlessoftball.blogspot.com is a blog created by Aaron Wright. Aaron's goal of the blog is to "retroactively post about event over the past two seasons to document our paradigm shift in program culture." Once he is caught up to the present, he wants to give game recaps and current events. Girls that graduate and leave the program will still have a presence through the living memory of the program's blog. What a wonderful gift he is giving through his blog.

Using Flipgrid as a Sharing Tool

     The Lincoln Staff Book Club is using Flipgrid as our tool for sharing with each other this time as we discuss the book, Orphan Island. Book club members are not always available to meet together at the same time, and Flipgrid provides a platform to share our thoughts with each other. I created a free Flipgrid account and added a few discussion starter questions into the grid for our group. Flipgrid creates a special code just for our questions. Group members download the Flipgrid app or use the Flipgrid website. They enter our group code and then make a video response to the discussion questions. So far in our discussion we have 12 video responses that have been recorded and 41 minutes of engagement with the discussion grid.
     Try Flipgrid the next time you have a book club discussion group.