Our Afternoon with Taylor Swift and the R.E.D. Campaign
This afternoon we had an awesome experience! We participated in a live web cast with the one and only Taylor Swift! Scholastic.com offered an afternoon with Taylor to help launch their R.E.D. campaign which stands for Read Every Day. Coincidentally, Taylor’s new album is also titled Red.
Taylor Swift is an avid reader. As she says, “It’s fun to escape from your life and jump into the lives of different characters.” Students in the live audiance as well as the students in our class gasped with excitement when she mentioned the titles of her favorite childhood books. They have something in common with a super star! Some of her favorites include the Harry Potter series, Charlotte’s Web, and Star Girl (which I can see flying off my bookshelf in the days to come!)
She chooses books based on other people’s recommendations. Her favorite genre is historical fiction. She loves to imagine living in another time. She told the students, ” No matter what you are reading you’re picking up knowledge that is impacting you whether you realize it or not.”
Ms. Swift has clearly been seen and impact of reading on her life. She credits reading with helping her to be a better song writer. She won a national poetry contest in 4th grade and wrote a novel while on vacation when she was 12. While she admits these were not her best pieces of writing, the encouragement of her parents, friends, and teachers helped her to realize that she had real potential. She encouraged us to focus on learning and studying as much as possible and to find something that we love. If we can do that it will help us get through those bad days and tough times in life. I have to admit I was blown away by how wise this 22 year old is! She reminded us that we can find beauty and magic everywhere we look if we use our imagination.
When it comes to writing her music, Taylor says the process changes every time. Sometimes a lyric or melody will just come to her and she has to whip our her cell phone to record a quick reminder so she won’t forget it. Many of her songs are about things that have happened to her or her friends. Some are about movies or books she has read. For example the song, “Mean” is about an article written about her music. The critic was mean in his criticism. When that song became an anthem for anti-bullying she said that was one of the proudest moments in her life. She says she was lucky to have good, stable influences in her life to keep her on the right track. Below is a couple of clips from our web cast.
Taylor even sang to us!
We Love you Taylor Swift!!!!!!!
Well needless to say Taylor Swift inspired us not only to read more, but to write more too! We spent the remainder of the day publishing our first piece for our portfolio, an expository essay on what it means to be a good citizen. In addition to typing that and getting it in its best final form, we used Doreen Cronin, author of The Diary of a Fly, as a mentor to help us create our 
Diary of a Bat book. A silly take on being a bat infused with actual facts about bats. Stop by the third floor hall to take a peek at the work of some up and coming authors from RM Bacon Elementary School!