Author Sheets

Introduction

    Have you noticed that there are lots of baseball card clones available now?  Baseball cards have led to NASCAR cards, football cards, basketball cards, and even rock star cards.  What if the library had author cards to look at? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to find out new information about your favorite authors and only have to look in one place?

For Example:

Patricia Polacco

Chris Van Allsburg

Jerry Spinelli

R. L. Stine

Avi

Task

   You will create an author sheet that contains the following:

• a picture of the author

• biographical information (Name, Date of Birth, Hometown, Family)

• brief description of your favorite title by that author

• list of books that the author wrote

• why you like that particular title or author

Resources

Internet Resources:

• ALA Great Websites: Authors & Illustrators
  
• Marilee's Picturebook Links
• Scholastic Author Studies
• McBookwords: Authors and Illustrators on the Web
• Learning About the Author and Illustrator
• Children's Literature Web Guide
• Silverbrook Library of Websites

   

• General Search Tools

  Ask Jeeves for Kids

  Yahooligans

  Kids Click

Print Sources:

• Biography For Beginners ( 920 Har)
• Any books in the biography section of the library media center (921...)
• Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults (R 809.8 Maj)

Example Author sheet

Process

Step 1: Read at least one book written by an author you like.

Step 2:  Research the author.  You will need the following information:

• a picture of the author

• biographical information (Name, Date of Birth, Hometown, Family)

• list of books that the author wrote

Step 3:  Save the author picture into your AppleWorks document as a jpeg file.

• If your picture is on the Internet, hold down the mouse on the picture and choose Copy Image. Paste it to your file. You can also drag the image. If your image is too large, you may need to edit it using Graphic Converter.
  

• If your picture is in a book, use the scanner attached to the computer and scan the picture.  Crop the picture to the size you need, then save it and paste it into your file.

Step 4:  Create your sheet using AppleWorks.
            (Hint: Using the column button on the top, make two columns.)

• The left column of the sheet should include the picture of the author, biographical information, and a brief description of your favorite title by that author .

• The right column of the sheet should include a list of some of the books that the author wrote and why you like that particular title or author.

Step 5: Print your sheet out.  Turn it in to be laminated.

Step 6: Present your sheet to your classmates. Describe your chosen author. If you've read more than one book by him/her, this is when you should compare them.

Evaluation

Add your sheet to the library collection.  Your next assignment will be to evaluate your classmate's research.  Which ones stand out?  Which authors are new to you?  What descriptions make you curious?  What reasons for liking a particular author or title match your own interests?