Making the most of Authors Live

Most of our Authors Live events have an accompanying resource to help you maximise the opportunities it offers. You'll find a link to the event resource from the Authors Live page ahead of the live stream, and on the events Watch On Demand webpage after broadcast. Have a look at the resource before the event to see if any of the activity suggestions suit your pupils.

We know that time can be tight before an event, so for most Authors Live events we have a quick activity suggestion titled 'if you only do one thing'. You'll find this information on the webpage for each author event.

In the lead up to each live streamed event, we run Twitter activities. This could be a question for the writer or panel member, or a drawing activity, or a thematic activity based on the author's books. Just check the hashtag #BBCAuthorsLive for the activity before each event, then tweet us and you could get a mention during the broadcast!

If you don't own the writer or illustrator's books, why not organise a class trip to a local library to borrow some? It's a great opportunity to build links with your library and gives pupils the chance to become members. The library can also be a great place to watch an Authors Live event.

Getting parents in to watch Authors Live events with pupils can lead to some great opportunities. If you watch the event in the library it can give pupils and their parents the chance to browse books together, and afterwards parents can read stories to groups of children.

If you're screening the event at lunchtime or after school, you could get pupils to design event posters or digital trailers to encourage others along. You can ask pupils to plan and organise refreshments and competitions too. For example, you could plan an Authors Live cinema themed event, and provide cushions, blankets and popcorn during the screening.

The concept of an author or an illustrator might be new to some Early or First Level pupils as they may never have seen one before. This is a good opportunity to explore the following questions:

• Look at the names written on the cover of a book. Who do you think these people are?

• What do you think an author does? What do you think an illustrator does?

• How do you think an author gets the ideas for stories?

• Do you think every author likes writing the same kind of stories? Do you think illustrators like drawing the same kind of stories? What different kinds of stories can you think of?

• A lot of books have pictures and words. An author and an illustrator work together to create these books. What do you think comes first, the pictures or the words?

• Imagine you are an illustrator – how do you decide what to put in your pictures? Look at a picture book you have in class. Do the words and the pictures tell us exactly the same information?

• Is there anything you can see in the illustration that isn't included in the text?

Some of our teen events feature thought provoking discussion on topical issues. For instance, our event with Bessora and translator Sarah Ardizzone, the creators of the Alpha graphic novel, focused on the refugee experience, our Juno Dawson event discussed mental health, and our Unheard Voices panel event discussed the importance of self-expression and making your voice heard.

Talking about these issues beforehand is a great way to increase pupils' engagement with the events. You can ask them to research the issues and present their findings to others before the event, and recommend other books and websites to check out afterwards.

Displays are a good way to build a buzz around an event. You can ask pupils to make a display informing others about the writer's work, or based around the theme of the Authors Live event: for instance, our Storytelling Relay event could inspire a display of stories from around the world.

After watching an Authors Live event, the natural next step is to get pupils finding more books to read! You could ask them to investigate the featured writer, or find similar books by other authors: for instance, pupils who enjoy Anthony Horowitz's event could find other books about spies and adventure.

You could start a recommendations wall in your classroom where pupils can put up Post-it notes recommending different books. They can also create recommendation bookmarks to leave inside favourite reads, to tell others more about the book and why they've enjoyed it.

Reading alongside your pupils can be motivating for them, as you can make your own recommendations and read the books they've recommended to you.

Hold a Poetry Slam. Our poetry events are hugely popular and have inspired schools to develop performance poetry projects. You could get your pupils to write their own poems and perform them. You can find resources to help you introduce poetry for upper primary pupils on the learning resources section of our website, as well as resources on performance poetry for secondary school pupils.

It can be especially rewarding for pupils to adapt a writer's work into a different format. For secondary pupils, they could adapt a scene from a novel into comic strip or into a book trailer.

For lower primary pupils, pupils could adapt a picture book into a play. We have a comprehensive resource to support you turning picture books into plays. This can be found in the learning section of the website.

If you want to tackle a more in-depth project inspired by an event, you could use the Authors Live event as a starting point for a cross curricular project. For example, our Storytelling Relay has been used by schools to explore the Commonwealth and our Nicola Davies Authors Live event has been used as a starting point to explore environmentalism.