Presentations and Workshops for Teachers/Adults

Offered by Children’s Author and Certified Teacher, Barbara Garriel

1) DREAMS DO COME TRUE! – From the Classroom and Back: A Teacher Turned Author Returns to the Classroom and the Auditorium!

Part A: There is a saying that everyone has at least one book in them! If you think you do, join Barbara as she shares her journey from the elementary classroom and falling in love with children’s books to becoming a published author, songwriter and presenter.  Barbara offers tips on how to get started: from books to help you launch into writing, to being part of a writers’ group, to professional conferences and organizations to submission information.

Part B: An on-going writing workshop for beginning adult writers and those who would like to get re-started with their own writing.

2) WRITER’S WORKSHOP – (Teachers of Kindergarten – 5^th grade who are just beginning to use or are not yet using the writing process in their classrooms)

Join Barbara Garriel to make your classroom into a writer’s workshop.  She will show you some how-tos of inviting children to lead “writerly lives”, to keep writer’s notebooks and be engaged in the writing process. 

3) JUMPSTART YOUR STUDENT’S (and your own!) WRITING - Getting Students to Write More and Bring More Craft into Their Writing – (3^rd – 8^th grade teachers)

Barbara will share a variety of warm-up strategies and craft lessons to use with your students and in your own writing.

4) WRITE OUT LOUD!  - (Teachers of Kindergarten and up)

This program introduces the audience to Barbara Schmitz Garriel and her work as an author. You will witness the journey from writer’s notebook to early drafts and illustrator’s sketches, through revised work, final copy and the submission process to press proofs and first bound copies of her children’s picture book and non-fiction science books.  The author also shares the process of writing and recording the original song she created, which accompanies her picture book, I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello.

5) WHY I PREFER A LONG SOAK IN THE TUB TO A QUICK DUNK IN THE POOL (or Why I Like Immersing Students in Genre Studies to Support the Writer’s Workshop and Other Areas of the Curriculum) - (3^rd - 5^th grade teachers)

Barbara Garriel shares successful genre studies conducted in her classroom (i.e. memoir, non-fiction, poetry).

6) HOME-LITERACY CONNECTION (or What Did You Do This Week, Weekend or Vacation? – I Read!) - (Kindergarten to 3^rd grade)

This program offers how-tos of setting up a literacy backpack program for your classroom.  Participants will see many examples of thematic backpacks from Barbara’s classroom and from the book she co-authored, 12 Take-Home Thematic Backpacks. During an extended course, teachers will create materials for one or more thematic backpacks.

7) BOOKS AND MUSIC – A NATURAL HARMONY:  An All Musical Book Review - (Primary and Music teachers)

Music is a natural partner in a literacy program.  Barbara offers suggestions of literature and interdisciplinary activities with musical themes and topics for an elementary classroom.  Barbara will share her children’s picture book and the original song which she wrote,

I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello.

(This can be a hands-on workshop where teachers create materials for a “music-themed” activity pack for use in their classrooms or as a home-school literacy backpack.  Teacher’s guide is available.)  

Barbara Schmitz Garriel is a children’s author and certified teacher.  Barbara has studied at the Teachers College Writing and Reading Project, the Highlights Foundation Writers’ Workshop at Chautauqua and Hofstra University Summer Writing Institute, and with author and writing consultant, Ralph Fletcher.

Barbara is the author of I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello, children’s picture book and original song.  I Know a Shy Fellow… was nominated for the EB White Read Aloud Award. Barbara is also a nature enthusiast.  She has written such non-fiction science titles as: Wolves and Their Ways, The Underwater Life of Rivers, Endangered Sea Life, and Coral Reefs: Underwater Cities.  Barbara also co-authored the teacher’s resource manual, 12 Take-Home Thematic Backpacks, by Scholastic Inc.

Additional publications include: All From a Tree House, The Kittens, Balto – The Sled Dog, A Guide Dog Comes to Class, Jessie, the Guide Dog, Backyard Birds, Animal Camouflage and Extreme Fish: Sharks!  due to be released in late 2005.  A book on South Korea will be released in 2006.