As part of Read Week author Brad Herzog lets Bordewich-Bray 1st and 2nd graders choose items for a story they will complete in their classrooms Wednesday.
Students at Bordewich-Bray Elementary got the opportunity to learn about reading and writing from a real author as a part of Read Week.
Brad Herzog, a California-based children’s and adult author, spent the day at Bordewich to teach the students about how to write a book to get them excited about reading and writing.
Herzog gave a presentation to students in which the kids got to create a story together. The kids chose between options to build the characters, setting a plot and creating a story about two brothers who took an adventure through a forest, fought dragons and found a time machine. At the end of the presentation, Herzog told the students to finish the story to create what happened with the time machine.
“When you have an open door policy to imagination, it will knock sometimes — you just have to open it,” Herzog told the students.
All the kids were extremely engaged in the story making process, and many said they really enjoyed getting to make the story with a real author.
“It was really good, I liked how he showed us how to make things,” said 2nd grader Brooklynn Berg.
“I have always wanted to meet a real author in real life,” added Lillian Turner.
Lillian, her sister Grace and another classmate Thomas Palmer, said they all wanted to be authors when they grow up, so getting to hear about how Herzog started his writing career was exciting for them.
“I learned a lot from him,” Thomas said. “I wrote a little book too but it was only like six pages.”
“We were excited to learn about reading and writing,” added Grace.
For Herzog, getting the students excited about books was his goal.
“Speaking at schools is a great way to connect to the young kids and I think my job is to inspire them to read and write,” Herzog said.
He said he also hoped to show the kids becoming an author was obtainable if they really want it.
“I think sometimes kids read books and perceive it as a distant phenomenon and I want to convey that there is a real person who wrote it and maybe one day they can be that person too,” Herzog said.
Colleen Krahn, Bordewich librarian, said the school hopes to continue Herzog’s teaching past Read Week and have the students create their own books over the next few weeks to be bound and available for check out at the library.
“It was exciting to have an actual author come here and read,” Krahn said. “The students just loved it.”