The Literature Festival was an enriching experience! The event was comprised of two general sessions, where one guest author addressed the entire audience and break-out sessions where everyone had a choice of attending various events throughout the Student Union Building. After the opening credits, author Janet Wong started off the festivities by explaining the origins of her eighteen books. She is witty and full of energy! She quickly engages the audience with her "poetry suitcase". Each item in this case represents a personal link to her books. She selects a member from the audience to pick an item from this case, and then she elaborates on its significance. In most cases, most of her books are directly linked to her past experiences. For instance, a toy snake brings back memories of a walk through the woods with her mother, and a toy lion produces a humorous story about her Yoga book, plus a corresponding story regarding red and green apples.
I later attended Janet Wong's break-out session for LISD students. I was most curious on how she would be able to entertain a large audience, mainly comprised of children from ages 9-12. Especially, since the children had just had their lunch and they were either wired on caffeine or sleepy. Janet Wong was spectacular in this session as she started off with the topic of "Who hates to read?". Many children raised their hands. I felt that Janet was going to have a difficult session, but she easily won over these students by simply asking the non-readers if they had ever: read the graffiti off the bathrooms stalls, read the writing on cereal boxes, read the instructions for a new video game, or simply surfed the internet? Naturally, by the time she had completed her list she had proven to everyone that they actually did not hate to read, but rather were selective about their reading material. The rest of her session was most entertaining and all future teachers who missed out on this session truly missed out on a great learning opportunity!
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Michael: wow, you captured Janet Wong's sessions perfectly. I think she's very good at writing, and just as good at talking about reading and writing. I'm glad we got to enjoy MINN AND JAKE as a class and that a few of you got to meet her in her sessions and signings. I wonder, when you were getting her autograph, did you ask anything in particular you'd want to share with us?
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