Poet Friedrich Schiller couldn't write unless he could smell the scent of rotting apples in his desk drawer. On the other hand, Agatha Christie found eating apples in the bathtub was the best way to overcome writer's block.

The writing processes and life histories of many authors are quirky. They are often also inspiring. What novice writer toiling at a grubby job wouldn't be comforted to learn that Kate DiCamillo was a "picker" in a book warehouse? She boned up on the latest children's literature releases on the shelves on breaks between hauling and packing boxes.

Author studies work on different levels. They are a chance to delve deeply in the themes and style of a favorite writer. They give readers the opportunity to think about their own habits and routines as writers by exploring those of their favorite authors.

It's also fun to be a literary detective, sleuthing for the connections between the authors' real lives and the fictional worlds they create. As Virginia Woolf noted, "Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible."

The Internet provides more resources than ever for helping students see links across an author's body of work, as well as those connections between an author's writing and their life history. This week we've got resources for designing author studies, and for adding multimedia elements (like audio or video interviews) to author studies you already have underway. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

From the Choice Literacy Archives, Gayle Brand has an eGuide for planning author studies, taking teachers through the process of charting individual studies and plans for the entire year:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/218.cfm

Scholastic has compiled a Resource Round-Up for teachers designing author studies, with comprehensive links to materials throughout their site and beyond:

http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2754

Reading Rockets has video and audio interviews with many authors who are elementary school favorites at this link:

http://www.readingrockets.org/podcasts/authors

Are you grappling with more English language learners in your school or district? Write from the Start, a DVD workshop kit featuring Ruth Shagoury and Andie Cunningham, includes strategies for conferring with young students who speak little or no English. Tips on dealing with the "silent period," recordkeeping in writer's workshop, and building alphabetic knowledge are all included. Click here to preview footage from the kit:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item6.cfm

For Members Only

The Sisters close their three-part video series on bookrooms with a bookroom for older readers that might be the most intriguing of all. The "choice" bookroom is organized by author, not level. Students select sets of books from the room for use in literature groups, and are responsible for checking out and maintaining the room themselves:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/436.cfm

Katie DiCesare focuses her reading workshop early in the year on the concept of reader identity. In this week's contribution, she talks about four books she uses to launch minilessons and discussions with students that build their awareness of their reading habits:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/445.cfm

Andie Cunningham found herself frustrated with the quality of the questions asked by other adults in her writing workshop. She found herself using the concept of "circle of trust" from Courage to Teach to develop a new handout and procedures to help classroom visitors learn to ask more open-ended questions:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/444.cfm

That's all for this week!