ave you ever considered creating a teacher’s guide for your children’s book? If you haven’t, you’re missing out on an opportunity to position your book to be adopted for use in the classroom. Carol J. Amato suggests creating a teacher's guide for all of your fiction and nonfiction books. Through our instructional interview with Carol, you’ll find out how she did it, and how you can, too.

Carol J. Amato is the author of 19 books and 175 articles. Her current work includes the mystery series, The Phantom Hunters. Each mystery takes readers to a different culture. Book #1, The Lost Treasure of the Golden Sun, takes place on the Navajo Nation. She is finishing Book #2, The Secret of Blackhurst Manor, set in Lincolnshire, England. Her other recent titles include The Lost Treasure of the Golden Sun Teacher’s Guide and How to Start and Run a Writers’ Critique Group.

WOW:  What is a benefit to writing a teacher’s guide?

CAROL:  Writing a 32-page teacher’s guide can open whole new markets for your K-8 books; teachers and home-school parents are the major market. They will more readily choose your book for their kids because you have created ready-made activities, which saves teachers time from having to create them.

You can take the setting from your book and the time period and create a teacher’s guide that goes beyond the story itself.

For example, The Lost Treasure of the Golden Sun, which is the first book in my middle-grade mystery series, The Phantom Hunters, takes place on the Navajo Nation.

I created a teacher’s guide that not only had activities related to the actual story, but also activities and information about the Navajo Nation, Navajo culture and language, the Code Talkers, the Grand Canyon, Arizona geography and history, Arizona deserts and desert animals, other Arizona tribes, and American Sign Language (one of the characters is deaf).

WOW:  What steps should you follow to see how to write a guide?

CAROL:  This is really a multi-step process. The first thing is to go to a teacher supply store and look at all the teachers’ guides that are currently on the market. You will want to create activities across the curriculum, so look at all types, such as history, math, social studies, etc., to see what sort of activities they include.

The second step is to research the educational standards to see what curriculum matches the target age group and the subject of your book.

The third step depends on whether or not you have any teaching background. If you do, you should be able to determine what other types of activities you can include to make your teacher’s guide different from those on the market. If you don’t have that background, you can find a teacher at the grade level to which you are aiming and propose she co-write with you.

WOW:  Should a writer conduct research as to the standards for the state and area, and the stage of mental development the guide is designed to strengthen?

CAROL:  This is absolutely critical. Ideally, a writer would research the standards first to find out what is in them, and then create a story that incorporates them. I lucked out writing a middle-grade book about the Navajo Nation, since I didn’t discover until after the fact that kids in Arizona study the Southwest in the 4th grade and California kids study it in the 5th. What if this had been a 7th grade topic? I would have had a novel geared for ages 8-12 but a teacher’s guide for grade 7. That would never have worked.

I already had the idea for the second book in the series, The Secret of Blackhurst Manor, which takes place in England, before I looked at the standards. I didn’t start writing until I did research them, however. I discovered that kids don’t study Great Britain per se in grades 4-6, but they do study Ancient Rome. The Roman Empire extended to the Scottish border, though, and the Romans built many English towns. Julius Caesar was a silversmith in Britain before he became emperor.

I changed my original setting of Yorkshire to Lincolnshire; specifically, Lincoln, the town my ex-husband came from and which was founded by the Romans in 46 AD. The castle and cathedral there date from Norman times. The castle’s dungeon provided a super opportunity for some great scenes and plot twists, and of course, since my main character can see ghosts, the book had to have some who were Roman soldiers. This will allow me to create activities and research projects that deal with the Romans in Britain.

These days, in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers must teach to the standards. Anything that will help them to accomplish this task more easily is welcomed.

…put the word “Reproducible” on each page so that the teacher can freely photocopy and distribute the pages to students.

WOW:  Should you reference the curriculum covered by exercises that support specific state guidelines or mental development?

CAROL:  Doing so is absolutely critical. You will probably notice that a lot of teacher’s guides have the standards referenced at the front or the back of the guide. Teachers to whom I have spoken state that this is useless to them, since they can’t tell at a glance what activity is for what standard or development level. Instead, they want to see the standards printed on the page to which they apply. I have included mine in the footer of each page.

In addition, you need to include activities that not only target the average student, but also the gifted students, the slow learners, and the students for whom English is a second language. I have coded my pages with G for gifted, R for Resource (slow learners), and ELL (English Language Learners). It’s assumed that all the activities can apply to the class in general.

Also, put the word “Reproducible” on each page so that the teacher can freely photocopy and distribute the pages to students.

WOW:  What types of exercises will work?

CAROL:  The types of activities can include word games (like word searches and crossword puzzles), quizzes, and art, writing, and research projects. In one activity, I have the students create a newspaper with articles about “trips” they’ve taken on the Navajo Nation and things they’ve seen there—all researched from the Internet. Having a technical component (using the Internet to conduct research or software programs to create projects) is also critical.

“You can also buy a contact list of teachers and send them direct mail.”

WOW:  How would you promote the guide?

CAROL:  If your publisher publishes it, it will no doubt be sold through the same channels as your book. The publisher should also offer it to teacher supply stores. Bear in mind that public libraries will not buy it (though school libraries might), since it’s considered a “consumable” book; that is, it falls into the workbook category. Libraries don’t want to carry anything that might tempt a young reader to mark up the pages.

You can offer it on your website, but if your publisher agrees to publish it, be sure not to violate any terms of your contract; e.g., are you allowed to sell it on your site via a shopping cart or do you have to refer buyers to the publisher’s website?

You can also buy a contact list of teachers and send them direct mail. I would avoid emailing them. Many teachers don’t even have email, and even if they do, many school district servers filter out most email from the outside. Your publisher should also let the buyers of your book know that a guide is available.

I exhibit at trade shows and book fairs, and another step I intend to take is to get the book and teacher’s guide adopted through the school districts. Once a book is adopted, it will be on the curriculum list for all the schools in that district.

WOW:  Can a book be fiction and still be a teacher’s guide?

CAROL:  Yes, it certainly can. Mine are, as I’ve mentioned above. It’s a great way to get the students to learn about the setting of your story, other famous people who lived there, historical incidents that have taken place in that area, etc.

“…consider making it into a .pdf file and selling it as an e-book.”

WOW:  What do you do if your publisher won’t publish it?

CAROL:  The answer is simple: Publish it yourself. How you do so depends on your budget. I’ve seen freebie teacher’s guides that consist of a few typed pages. Don’t be this simplistic. A user-friendly page layout program such as Adobe Pagemaker or Microsoft Publisher can make you look like a graphics genius. You can also use MS Word, but it doesn’t handle graphics as easily as a graphics-specific program would.

If your budget is limited and/or you don’t want to spend the money getting it printed until you find out that there’s a demand for your teacher’s guide, consider making it into a .pdf file and selling it as an e-book. Your cost will be free, if you’ve designed the pages yourself. You can find a lot of free information on creating e-books on the Internet. You can sell the guide for a minimal cost, such as $4.95, and every penny will be profit.

You can also have it printed, if you have enough outlets in which to market it.

Either way, have a professional cover designed. You want the book to look like something the teacher could purchase in the teacher supply store, even if it isn’t being sold there.

WOW:  Can you give some examples of teacher guide exercises?

CAROL:  Certainly. As I mentioned before, you want to include activities across the curriculum: history, writing, reading comprehension, math, social studies, geography, science, technology, and art.

Here is a page-by-page breakdown of what I’ve included in my 32-page teacher’s guide:

Be sure to come up with snappy, kid-friendly titles for your activities. If possible, relate them to the theme of your book. For example, my teacher’s guide for the Lost Treasure of the Golden Sun has a southwestern theme: “Research Roundup,” and “Tribes, Trails, and Treasure-hunters” are two of the titles I used. Other kid-friendly activity titles are “Let’s Make Fry Bread” and “Let’s Learn Sign Language.”

Carol, thank you for making this interview so informative. I’m sure WOW! readers can see the value of creating a teacher’s guide to accompany their children’s books. Armed with this interview they will know how!

Ladies, you can find out more about Carol’s books by visiting www.stargazerpub.com and www.phantomhunters.com. You can email Carol at caroljamato@earthlink.net.

Jessica Kennedy, the Differently-Abled Writer, is a multi-published author of children’s short stories, inspirational & Christian essays and articles. She is a legally blind, ventilator dependent, quadriplegic, making her dreams come true one story at a time.

https://www.jessicakennedy71.blogspot.com/ 
https://www.jessica-kennedy.com

Email: jessicakennedy1971@yahoo.com