"Did I tell you that you are the BEST writer in the world?": Author studies in the elementary classroom

Jenkins, C. B. (2006). "Did I tell you that you are the BEST writer in the world?": Author studies in the elementary classroom. Journal of Children's Literature, 32(1), 64-78.

Jenkins outlines the benefits of author study with young children, and shares the story of an author study on Mem Fox that she undertook with a group of third graders. Jenkins describes a new approach to author study that she calls author study as multiple response. One of the best things about this article is the way Jenkins compares her own way of doing author study with the three more typical ways: author study as literary biography, author study as literary analysis, and author study as aesthetic response. She presents contrasting examples of how each way would look in a classroom, and puts the three approaches on a historical continuum. Her intent is to merge the good from all three approaches in her own approach.

This article suggested ideas for the kinds of things I would like to bring into elementary classrooms, as well as for the reshaping of our nice but limited literature festival into something powerful.