“I see!” an oberservation of a reluctant writer.

Author Assembly 2:15- 3:15 Be sure to review the assembly expectations with your classes.

I was looking forward to the reading month Author Assembly this year for sure. I am always excited to hear from people who write for a career. A funny little lady walks in with a funnier name “Do you think that is her real name?” ask my students. Buffy Silverman.

She has all these fantastic books behind her. Colorful and fascinating. She writes mostly informational and narrative non-fiction ( turning facts into stories, she says.) As she talked about each part of her life, she brought out a new hat.

One had big glasses- the observer.

One was a rainbow one with a propeller-

for when she needs to think like a kid.

One was a tweed writer’s hat.

She went on to share that she had to make MANY revisions and then showed one of her editor’s response sheets with 50 questions and suggestions for revision. Whoa!

In the end she shared something personal. She had been working on poetry and seemed to be very inspired. It was a very soft moment. She is writing poetry about all of the wonderful things she has learned by writing her informational books. She shared a poem for two voices- An conversation of sorts between a bat and a moth. The 3rd and 4th graders were the moth and the 5th graders were the bat. Very engaging and the poem was educational too. We had been dabbling in poetry in our workshop, so many of my kids’ eyes became round with recognition. Here was a real poet reading her poetry!

Back in the classroom we had a moment to reflect- I asked the kids what they noticed and noted about her talk. One of my most challenged writers, who believes one draft is the only draft, spoke about his revision. He shared that it got him thinking that if a very famous author has to revise and gets that many comments, that maybe his revising isn’t so bad.

A lot of great things were shared at that 2:15 assembly, but if her voice (versus my broken record) can get my reluctant writer to revise,  all things are good in the world!

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