Today was EXCELLENT! I thought I might be late, and since I demand punctuality of my students, I was horrified at the thought of being late for class myself. But the insanity on the train subsided, there was no mile-long line for the elevators at school, and all three of my classes were fantastic. I love students who show up ready to learn—and to share! We discussed Wish in my neo-slave narratives class and the students had some really interesting insights. In between classes I checked my email and found a request to republish my essay on African Canadian writers. I also found I had been cc’d on this lovely message from the awesome librarian at yesterday’s school. Here’s some of what she said:THANK YOU for bringing Zetta Elliott to our school yesterday!The program was a huge success. We had over 200 students from both campus schools…in the auditorium together. Zetta kept them engaged for 45 minutes with her interactive presentation.After the official program ended, she stayed and interacted informally with students in the auditorium and then accepted an invitation to visit their classroom on the 3rd floor, where I found her reading aloud from her new book to a group of enthralled 6th grade students.Today, students have been coming into the library all morning requesting her books.I highly recommend her presentation. I hope you are able to bring her to other schools.I would also welcome the opportunity to have her return to our school to work on other projects with our students. Please keep us in mind.Thank you again for providing our students with this valuable experience.
Tomorrow I go to a school in Bed-Stuy that I’ve visited several times before, and then I spend the weekend planning our launch party! I’ve made a flyer, which you can view here: launchflyer. More details to come…
Your presentations must be awesome. The thought of being the center of attention in front of a live audience scares me.
I think being a teacher helps–I’m used to standing up in front of a group of students. Now, having more than 200 kids in a school auditorium was *challenging*–but not scary. Kids are kind, for the most part—all you have to do is grab their attention, so the challenge is to be dynamic, mix things up, see what works and what doesn’t and make adjustments on the fly…their energy gives YOU energy! I’m much better with a small group, but will try to do better with the bigger groups.