I love when life, like a good story, circles back on itself – as it did last week when I visited Highland Terrace Elementary in Shoreline. In addition to presenting slide shows and workshops, I was interviewed by two delightful fourth graders who are reporters on a brand new, on-line student newsletter.
Reporters Molly and Caroline with me and a painting from my presentation.
I know something about creating a student newspaper. When I was in fifth grade, I wrote, edited and distributed my own class newspaper. It was a time-intensive undertaking without computers and Xerox machines. I handwrote a copy for each row in my class each week, using my best cursive.
I was interested to see how teamwork and technology would impact a student newsletter created fifty years after mine. Most of the stories in my Fifth Grade News were about me, my friends and family. The first issue of the Highland Terrace Orcas student newsletter has a broader reach. It includes interviews, a feature on the school salmon project, photos, and a comic, and reflects the efforts of many students and parent Laura Auerbach. It is posted on line.
During our interview, Molly and Caroline pitched me questions that their classmates helped generate. Here are some of my favorites, good points of departure for our ongoing conversation at Books Around The Table.
- Who helps you write your books? – Caroline
- What did you do before you started writing? – Zainab
- How do you make up simple problems in your stories? – Perrin
- What would your ideal career be if you couldn’t be an author?
- If you get writer’s block, what do you do? – Alex
Check out the first edition of the Highland Terrace Orcas student newsletter: Student Newsletter March 2012
P.S. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Highland Terrace Elementary. Thanks to all who made it so fun. As you can see from this video assembled by librarian Frank Kleyn, it’s a place where students and teachers and parents are all about the serious joy of learning.
Bonny Becker
Julie Paschkis
Julie Larios
laurakvasnosky
Margaret Chodos-Irvine
Books Around The Table 
Molly and Caroline asked some fairly sophisticated questions of you, Laura. Do you know how disappointed I am that you don’t share my love of cucumbers! How about pickles?
What a nice look at an author’s school visit and at a school that values reading and writing!
What a wonderful post – I didn’t know you generous and talented ladies had a blog! I look forward to reading more.
I finally had a chance to click on the links. I liked seeing you and the kids in action! Also, it is wonderful that newsletters now can be so sophisticated and filled with images. On the other hand, there is something wonderful about your entirely hand written newspaper. I wish my NY Times came that way.
What an impressive video of your visit to Highland Terrace! It really captured the joy of a successful author visit. This is the kind of promotion librarians need to be doing all the time in these days of budget cuts. Also loved the poetry list in Julie’s Book Bag. We just received our copy of Book Speak this week. I am looking forward to sharing it with my students. It’s filled with delightful poems about books and reading — there’s even a poem about the index! What librarian wouldn’t love that? These poems beg to be enjoyed across the grades.
What a wonderful story, Laura. I can imagine you as your school newsletter writer/editor! I love the 5 questions posed to you. At first, I smiled over the ‘who helps you write your books’ question; then I realized that we do get plenty of help from crit partners, family, friends, and editors! I hope you are well. Miss you and Seattle…