Author Interviews

By making books come alive, children are more likely to fall in love with reading. My students have always loved Jan Brett and Eric Carle books, but when I show them videos of the real live author speaking about their books, there is a sense of connection they begin to feel with the books. Reading Rockets has a library over 100 interviews with well-known authors about their lives and books they have written. This would be a great addition to any book study. Besides enjoying listening to the author's interview, think of ways to use the video to encourage higher level thinking in your classroom! Such as, before watching the interview brainstorm questions that you would like to ask the author. Maybe these questions will be a part of the interview, maybe not - you'll have to watch to find out! Or, after researching the author through watching the interview and reading their bio on Reading Rockets or other websites, set up and video mock interviews with the "author" (aka. one of your students). Ask students to create questions that may not have been in the interview, but was learned through their research. I'm getting excited. :) Hopefully by April my first graders will be ready for such an activity!