Author Carole Geithner Visits the Upper Campus

On Wednesday, November 6th, Young Adult author Carole Geithner, wife of Tim Geithner,  visited with all three of Rippowam Cisqua's 6th grade Language Arts classes.  Ms. Geithner's goal was to talk to students about the writing process, and get them excited about writing.  Ms. Geithner is the author of If Only, a young adult novel about a young girl who copes with grief and loss after losing her mother to cancer.  The RCS community is grateful to parent Jimin Han, who teaches at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, for serving as the liaison to arrange this exciting visit.  An important part of the 6th grade writing curriculum includes nurturing young authors who recognize that writing is a process.  Additionally, teachers encourage students to consider writing as a possible profession in the future.  To facilitate this goal, several guest authors typically visit with individual writing classes periodically throughout the year.

Ms. Geithner's visit included a “show and tell” in which she talked with the students about the inspiration for her book which was partly rooted in personal experience since her own mother passed away when Ms. Geithner was 25 years old.  Her ideas were also a result of her own personal experiences with the challenges faced by young adults who she encounters every day through her work as a counselor and social worker.

Ms. Geithner read an excerpt from her novel and she shared with the students that, “When you're going through a hard time, it's important to find someone to talk to. Another way to feel less alone is to read about others who have gone through similar experiences.”  She also showed students a portion of her manuscript with many edits from her editor so students could see that even "real writers" struggle with many rounds of editing and revision.  Writing is about the process, not just the final product.  Ms. Geithner talked with the students about the editing process, and she talked about the experience of sharing her work at a writer's workshop when she was still knitting her story together. 

The students then worked with Ms. Geithner on a writing exercise and were eager to share their work with the class by reading their writing out loud and responding to each other's work. Throughout the sessions, they had the chance to ask questions, which Ms. Geithner answered candidly.  Her words of encouragement and insight provided them with great inspiration for their own future development as writers. “Writing takes patience and commitment,” Ms. Geithner told the students, “but it is very fun to create or invent something, and I encourage you all to follow your passion to write.”