In a visit to Littleville Elementary School, Children’s book author Daryl Cobb sang and acted out stories from his books in two assemblies focused on encouraging children to write stories based on their own experiences.
Reminder Publishing photos by Amy Porter
HUNTINGTON — Children’s author and performer Daryl Cobb visited Littleville Elementary School on March 24, to share stories and songs and encourage the students to write about their own experiences. Cobb is the author of 18 books for children, who does in school visits and literacy-based assembly programming for K-8 students.
“Using your own lives in a story is so important. Using your own experiences is so important,” Cobb told the students during two assemblies, in which he shared some of his stories and acted them out, with audience participation.
Giving one example, he talked about he and his brothers going to lessons in the afternoons, where they would see black things zig zagging in the sky, which one student in the audience correctly identified as bats.
He said his dad loved to play practical jokes, and one night stopped at a street light and scared the boys, saying if bats landed on their heads, they would need to shave all their hair off. Cobb said after that he would hold his books on his head every time he approached a street light.
“If I take that real life experience and put it in a story, does it have to happen like it did in real life in the story?” Cobb asked the students, who said no.
He then recited a portion of his story “Bill the Bat loves Halloween — it was the finest thing he’d ever seen.”
Cobb talked about writing stories and having a teacher ask for more details. He said it helps to pick characters that are modeled after people in your lives, and using settings familiar to you.
Showing pictures of his daughter Kaylee’s room, which was filled with stuffed animals, he asked the students what they saw in the room. They responded, naming many of the animals, pictures on the wall and other objects they observed.
Cobb then sang a song he wrote inspired by Kaylee’s room, and asked the students to raise their hands when they heard details from the room in the song.
Reading another of his stories, “Do Pirates go to (Littleville) school?” Cobb asked for two teachers and a student to play a part in it. Fifth grade teachers Asher Rotenberg and Rachel Millin volunteered to be narrators, and Littleville Principal Melissa McCaul selected student fifth grader Ethan Peterson to play Pirate Pete. Every time the students in the audience responded with an action, Pirate Pete acted it out with their encouragement.
“As a professional writer, I still have one form of education available to me. Every time I pick up a book, I learn,” Cobb said. “As writers, remember to find experiences you have in your own lives. Find the real, the places that work as characters and spaces,” he added, calling all of the students writers.
After the assembly, literacy teacher Margaret Petzold said the focus on encouraging the students to write is the right one. “It is about writing. Years ago, an author came in to talk about how to publish a book. For me, it’s all about the process. Kids like fantasy. Within that fantasy is real events, good, bad, happy and sad,” Petzold said.
Cobb said he visits 70 to 80 schools a year all over the country with his stories, which he has been doing full-time for the past 16 years. His 19th children’s book, “Bill the Bat: To the Moon and Back,” will be released this August.
“Every school is different.” He said he found the students at Littleville very attentive. “They listened and were actively involved.”
The children’s book author’s visit to Littleville Elementary was funded by the Gateway Education Foundation and the Barr Foundation.
