Mark Twain School Visits

The half day or full day program with Mark Twain-Storyteller is a primary emphasis on English Language Arts Academic Content Standards, including but not limited to reading, writing, language, speaking and listening and research.  However, there is also opportunity for learning in math, history, and fine arts.

As an example, prior to your scheduled event, we will provide lesson plans that teachers may use during the half or full day with Mr. Twain visiting individual classrooms and involving the classes in math projects with origami jumping frogs the pupils create, he might help with a word search, or students may choose to become newspaper reporters for a newspaper, the "Twain Tribune" as they write articles and publish a classroom newspaper after researching the life of Mark Twain and interviewing him in their classroom. They will develop listening skills as they hear him tell short stories for their class and will dig deeper into questions that cause them to think..."why did he write this story?"

There is also a great opportunity, if you choose, to insert aspects of Character Education into the classroom as Mr. Twain uses his stories to help pupils identify ethical dilemmas and look for key character traits, or the lack thereof -Trustworthiness, Caring, Respect, Fairness, Responsibility and Citizenship.  Mark Twain will lead the pupils through questions about the stories and determine if there are choices to be made, who was impacted by the choices, what they might do if they were the character.
As mentioned earlier, you may choose a half or full day of programming for your Mark Twain visit, depending on budget, number of grades to be visited and "options".  Either option could include an assembly with the entire school prior to beginning the classroom programs.  Mr. Twain usually tells "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County" for an assembly and the classroom programs are built around that story.


Another option available for a full day visit is the opportunity to have Stephen do a workshop - "Using Storytelling in the Classroom" for your teachers after school.  This is an interactive workshop that will introduce teachers to various methods and uses of storytelling as a teaching tool.  This option is only available after the full day of programming and is at no additional cost.

Call Stephen Hollen today at 937-371-4071 

to schedule for your school or district.   

There are Fall and Spring Tour Dates available.

There are discounts if a district schedules 

for several individual schools.