After reading Kate Messner’s article, The Skyping Renaissance, I learned a lot about author skyping. I think the most surprising thing for me was that this even existed. I had no idea that author were willing to do this. I think it is a great thing because it can allow students to ask questions about the writing process and inspirations of a novel from the exact source!
I would love to set up an author visit for my classroom because I think it would be fun for the students and the author. I am a little bit of a book nerd so I can not tell you the excitement I would have if I were able to meet one of my favorite authors! Even if students are not into reading, talking to the author could change their minds.
As I said, an advantage of this is having students ask questions about the writing process that an author has to go through. Another advantage is it is generally available to a school even if they are not a highly populated school or a school that has a lot of funds. Since Skype is a free program, there is just the problem of finding a time.
Some disadvantages I see is the students not paying attention to the author and messing around. Just based on my experiences as a student, there are students that do not pay attention when a speaker comes to the classroom. I think this is rude because the speaker is giving us our time to talk about something they are passionate about, the least we could do is pay attention. To solve this, I would have each student write two questions and they have to ask the author at least one.
For my ideal author visit, I would love to have Harper Lee because she is so interesting as an author. Not only did she write To Kill a Mockingbird, this was her only books for a majority of her life. However, nearly 55 years later this changed. In 2015, she wrote the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman. Sadly, this author visit would not be possible because she passed away in 2016.
Until next time,
-Rachel
Rachel's Mind 