Doreen Rappaport – A Writer’s Life

Program Description

Doreen Rappaport is an award winning author of 25 books for children and young adults. She specializes in picture book fiction, retelling tales of other culture and multicultural history of the United States. Her presentation takes children through her writing process. She emphasizes idea generation, the research process, literacy techniques used to tell a story, and the importance of revision over inspiration. She shows children drafts of her story with editors’ comments on them so they can see how professional writers struggle with revision just as students do. She often sends copies of books-in-progress ahead of her visit for children to critique. Rappaport also conducts writing workshops for children and in service writing workshops for teachers, modeling techniques that they can use in the classroom to motivate children and to help them work on individual writing skills.