Why create a Curriculum Guide for your books?
“A discussion guide and/or activity guide is a valuable way for teachers, librarians and parents to give a book more depth and breadth,” says illustrator Melissa Sweet who collaborated with me on SPIKE, THE MIXED-UP MONSTER. Today, there’s more interest than ever in these guides. Why? Two words: Common Core. Educators everywhere are looking for ways to incorporate this new mandate.
And once you have a guide, it’s a win-win-win situation!
- For kids, the games, crafts and activities are fun. They encourage kids to play with ideas they’ve learned from the book and to dive deeper into the subject matter.
- For teachers, the guide helps them incorporate your book into lesson plans, especially if the guide aligns with the Common Core.
- For you, the guide increases your book’s exposure and lets you elaborate on ideas you’ve introduced. It makes a dandy handout for school and library visits and can drive traffic to your website.
What are the different kinds of guides?
Activity Guides
These offer interactive activities, such as cut-out masks, holiday cards, finger puppets, bookmarks and so on. They may include directions for games, activities, songs, recipes, and crafts.
Discussion Guides
These guides have more text, fewer cut-outs. They might provide interviews with the author and illustrator, discussion prompts, projects and extension activities. They list questions to ask kids and suggest additional books, websites and resources. See Michelle Markel and Melissa Sweet’s Discussion Guide for BRAVE GIRL.
All of the Above
Our SPIKE, THE MIXED-UP MONSTER Curriculum Guide has something for everyone—pages of interactive cut-out, crayon and drawing activities for kids, plus book-related questions that align with the Common Core for educators.
How do you create a Curriculum Guide?
Talk to your publisher. More and more houses are interested in developing them. Some will work with the author and illustrator. Others will hire an outside reading specialist to write discussion questions, illustrated with pick-up art from the book.
For our book SPIKE, THE MIXED-UP MONSTER, Melissa Sweet and I agreed to work on the guide together. I came up with the games and wrote the copy. (As the former Children’s Content Director of Nick Jr. Magazine, they were right up my alley!) Melissa did sketches for some pages and we used pick-up art from the book for other pages. We submitted the “manuscript” and later sketches to our editor and then worked with the Simon & Schuster marketing department to have the guide designed and copy-edited. Simon & Schuster also hired a literacy specialist, Tracie Vaughn Zimmer to add a discussion guide with questions that align to the Common Core. Tracie says, “I’ve been writing guides for 10 years. My focus is to really try to find what’s unique about the book and bring that forward for teachers to use in their classroom. The new push is the alignment with The Common Core Standards, which I’ve been trained in extensively over the last two years.”
Who pays the costs?
Sometimes the publisher, sometimes you! For my book JUST SAY BOO,
I worked with my illustrator Jed Henry to create Halloween cards, masks, paper dolls, a charades card game, and more. Jed agreed to create some original art and we used some pick-up art as well. We both donated our time and then I hired a former Nick Jr. designer, Jennifer Starr, to put it together. This is key. Without a good designer, your guide won’t look professional or be as appealing.
How long does it take?
It depends on the scope of the guide. Our SPIKE guide is 15-pages long and includes original art so the production process took several months. Guides that are mostly text or use pickup art will take less time.
How does it get distributed?
You, your illustrator and your publisher post the guide as a free downloadable PDF on your websites, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest accounts. I also take copies along to school and library visits, conferences and other venues. To keep costs down, I might copy one or two pages, do those activities with the kids, and then provide the school the link for more. Or you can email your school contacts ahead of time and have the school download the guide before your visit.
To download the SPIKE, THE MIXED-UP MONSTER Curriculum Guide, visit: www.susanhoodbooks.com
For wonderful ideas for teaching SPIKE developed by the professors of Lesley University, see http://march23rdhandout.blogspot.com/p/panel-i.html
Have more questions? To get more information about creating guides, contact [email protected].
Talk tomorrow,
Kathy
Filed under: authors and illustrators, Interview, Marketing a book, Process, Tips Tagged: Curriculum Guide, Melissa Sweet, Paula Wiseman Books, Simon & Schuster, Spike the Mixed up Monster, Susan Hood
Kathy, this was an excellent post! You helped make this subject that much clearer. Thank you!
checking out Susan’s site now! Thanks, Susan
Donna
Thanks to Kathy for posting. I learned a lot creating these guides and thought I should share. They are wonderful things to hand out during school visits! –Susan
loved looking at the links….SUCH FUN….and so active. Good for writers and illustrators to see this networking. And so often in CT…my old lifelong stomping ground!
Great post Kathy, I learned so much! Thank you!
SPIKE is a really fun book, and it’s so good to know about the guides. Thank you for yet another helpful, informative post!
Cathy,
Thanks for stopping by. Any chance I will see you at the conference?
Kathy
Cat,
I’m getting excited about seeing you at the conference this year. I hope we can find some time to talk.
Kathy
Susan,
Thanks for sharing. What you have put together is one of the best I have seen.
Kathy
Writersideup,
Donna, You always confuse me at first look.
Kathy
Headed to NESCBWI in May this year.
Maybe NJ in 2014?
Cathy,
Oh, I think you told me that. Sorry if I made you repeat it. Why don’t you think about writing an article inspired by a workshop or the conference itself. I’m sure there is lots of good things going on there that we could share.
Kathy