Beyond Storytime: A Colab Series

What is possible when children’s book authors, illustrators, and elementary educators collaborate?

In April 2020, with school buildings closed for shelter-in-place, NWP Writers Council members, teachers, and children’s book authors and illustrators came together to rethink the stand-alone storytime and the traditional “author visit.” Beyond Storytime Colab was launched from this initial conversation and in each episode we dig into one of aspect of the work and spend time co-designing together.

Episodes are livestreamed on Facebook with an online chat and posted here as archived discussions with related resources.

Making and Sharing Our COVID Stories

After a full year of COVID, which included violence against Black lives and attacks on Democracy, a group of educators and writers come back together at Beyond Storytime CoLab to share and consider what we have made, why we have made it, and the stories these objects carry for ourselves and others. See what we have learned, what we chose to carry forward, and how these objects and decisions inform our vision of teaching writing as well as our collective storytelling and history-making.

See the slideshow from the show…

Creating a Picture Book as a Community of Collaborators

This CoLab features Writing Project colleagues—author-educator Ruth Devlin, artist-illustrator-educator Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez, and editor Amy Bauman—sharing their story of collaborating from a distance in the creation of a picture book: Ants: Across, Around, and Through. In this episode they  share their process, the challenges and possibilities of collaborative work, and consider implications for teaching writing.

Awesome Author Visits when Everyone is on Zoom

This CoLab features Louisville Writing Project teacher Sandra Hogue and children’s book authors and illustrators K-Fai Steele, Gordon C. James,  Aram Kim, and Kyle Lukoff as they explore the opportunities and possibilities of creating awesome author visits when everyone is on Zoom.

Sharing Works-in-Progress to Support Young Writers in Understanding Authors’ Craft

This colab features a conversation between children’s book authors and illustrators Shanda McCloskey, K-Fai Steele, Mika Song, Ana Aranda and Texas educator and NWP teacher-leader Katie McKay as they examine works-in-progress and talk about how they can support young writers in better understanding authors’ craft. The slides from this show are also available.

RESOURCE: New Mini-Lessons Take Young Writers Beyond Storytime
Developed as part of the Colab where authors and illustrators shared their works-in-progress with educators, these sample mini-lessons created by Katie McKay, from the Heart of Texas Writing Project, are ready for teachers to use with students. Each mini-lesson uses one or more clips from the conversation between Katie and a group of children’s book authors and illustrators. Together, the mini-lessons are designed to show young authors how they can learn from the authors they love.

Beyond the Storytime Livestream, Livestream

With schools closed for shelter-in-place, NWP Writers Council members, teachers, and children’s book authors and illustrators came together to rethink the stand-alone storytime and the traditional “author visit.” During this initial conversation, ideas surfaced around the ways that teachers and authors/illustrators might collaborate given the historic moment of a global pandemic. The slides from this show include details about the participating teachers, authors, and illustrators.