I selected the author for my story because I originally read the book she wrote named Watercress and really liked the message it was telling people about not letting your culture or who you are embarrass you. So I figured that some of her other books probably had messages that were pretty good as well. I looked up her books that she had done and read a little about them and they interested me. So I decided to pick her since I really liked her books when I looked at them overall. 

I found it interesting how her books were very connected to her life in some kind of way. I also thought it was interesting how she was going to be a doctor at first and then took two completely different paths, one being environmental science and the other creative writing. She had a very interesting life getting her to the point she is at today. 

Learning about the author influenced my response to their work, because it made me realize how many connections there were in the books to the author’s life. I did not realize before how much the author incorporated her own life into the stories she wrote. For example, Watercress is about not fitting in and she based it off of how she kind of felt off growing up in the midwest as a Chinese-American. 

The value of an author study in the classroom is that then students can see the background of the author and it could help them to make sense for why the author may have wrote the book the way they did. It can help students to see that sometimes the author may have wrote a fictional book but it may have been based off of experiences that the author had lived with during their life. 

For my author I chose Christian Robinson. I really liked his book that I read during this semester called “You Matter.” I was fascinated by his writing and illustrations so I figured I would do my author research on him to find out more that I didn’t know and become more familiar.

I found a lot about him interesting but I found so many fun and interesting facts about him that I included on my slides.

After learning more about the author and his books, I feel that I can now connect to his message and writing on a deeper level now that I know his writing style and how he likes to convey his message. 

I feel that there is a lot of value that comes out of author study in the classroom. Being able to learn about someone in their writing will make you have a deeper connection due to the fact that then you understand why and how they write like that. A lot of authors also connect their writing to a real story or something that has happened in their life and you would learn that through doing author study. 

We selected this author because of the messages that his books promote. Our first exposure to this author was perviously in the semester, when reading You Matter. All of his books, including this one, are positive ways to teach kids important lessons. 

We were surprised to learn about his history. This opened our eyes to the roots of his stories and was a good reminder that everyone starts somewhere. 

I think that the biggest impact this had on us was introducing us to all of the books that he has been apart of. I am so glad that we were introduced to this author and his work, because it will be great to use in our future classrooms. 

Author studies will help students become more familiar with certain authors and all of the work they have. It will also open their eyes to the author’s background and show them that they can do anything they dream of!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sysyAYORW7pSPoY2zItkhoTXYVJP53eRz3VNhds4zO4/edit?usp=sharing