Teen LitCon Bus Trip
Provided transportation to the Twin Cities Teen Litcon in Mendota Heights, MN. Transportation consisted of one school bus. This was offered to any student in grades 7 and up or adult who could reach a pick up location. The Teen LitCon included author talks, writing workshops, arts activities and the opportunity for collaboration between student readers, writers and YA lit aficionados. Attending authors this year included Jason Reynolds, Leigh Bardugo, Neal Shusterman, Faith Erin Hicks, S.A. Bodeen, John Coy, Pete Hautman, Dawn Klehr, Monica Ropal and Derek Sullivan. Several of these authors are nationally known while the majority are Minnesota based authors.
52 participated
Students will be inspired to read and write and interact with authors and other students attending. Educators will have the opportunity to meet, learn from and network with authors and other attending educators. CEUs will be available for educators. We also wish to further collaboration between Marshall's school and the public library as well as between Marshall and Redwood Falls teen services programs. Participant evaluation and anecdotal responses will be collected.
The teens were very excited both to attend and by the event itself. We initially had a total of 63 teens and adults signed up but had several cancellations prior to the event. Responses were overwhelmingly positive. In describing their day, teens called the event "awesome", "amazing", "inspiring", "fun", "interesting", and "the best day ever". Teens listed both author presentations and event activities as sources of inspiration for their own reading and writing ('book genie readers' advisory for example).
Marshall public schools provided chaperones and publicity for the event as well as assisted in developing publicity and policies. Redwood Falls Public Library was intended to be a pickup location but since no patrons from there signed up, the rest stop location was changed to a different location.