How to Speak to Third Graders

Today I spoke to third graders for Read Across America Day. This presentation went better than my eighth grade presentation. Third graders are between 8 and 9 years old. This is a fantastic age group for a speaker. I had no trouble getting them to share. Sometimes it was hard to get them to stop sharing!

I brought my Powerpoint presentation on a disc. It worked perfectly. The kids loved seeing photos of me as a kid reading, writing and playing pretend while surrounded by animals. I showed them photos of me today--still reading, writing, playing pretend and still surrounded by animals. We have 9 pets--most of them bigger than a breadbox.

I was a voracious reader!

A page from my childhood diary!

I talked about my education and that authors don't make a lot of money (might as well tell it like it is!) I did make the mistake of talking too much with the eight graders. Today, I got the kids talking right off the bat. For every slide, I gave my spiel and then questioned them about their interests and if they keep diaries etc. They enjoyed answering me.

I utilized the ideas I received from my friends at Book Blogs and the KDP community . I want to thank everyone who took their time to help me. I want to single out Molly Snow and Jason Lassen for being particularly helpful. They each contacted me personally with loads of information and ideas. Molly wrote a guest post on this blog to share with everyone. She encouraged me to call the press and Jason encouraged me to turn my speaking presentation into a show.

I combined Molly's guidelines with Jason's showmanship to create an interactive presentation. I brought props and dressed the kids up as characters from The Pet Washer. I put up a slide explaining the six elements of a story (some say there are five, I say there are six).

I showed the class who the main characters were, the villain and the supporting cast. I described the problem and goal of the main character and how all of it comes together at the Spring Festival. Lastly, we discussed resolution. I brought up eight volunteers, four boys and four girls, for this demonstration. It was no problem getting this age group to volunteer.

After the children returned to their seats, we brainstormed creating a new story together (using the six elements of a story).. The students are off to a great start and will get extra credit from their teacher if they turn in their stories next week. I love knowing that about 60 students will be writing creative, short stories this week. Yeee haaaaw!

I'm proud of today. Yes, I promoted my book but, more importantly, I inspired students to become authors!

To Do: Share what you know with others! There are children and adults out there who just need to hear--I did it, so can you!

Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
author of The Pet Washer
a novel for girls aged 9-12

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss