Enriching Education: AdoptAnAuthor

Before The MEG (starring Jason Statham) was the #1 summer movie in the U.S. and the world, the novel the story was based upon was being used by reading, language arts, English, and science teachers to get their students to read. Best-selling author Steve Alten recalls the initial response he received from teens who picked up the book when it was first released back in 1997.

"I must have received hundreds of emails from students, and they all contained the same message, 'I hated reading… until I read MEG.' A few months later teachers began sending email, telling me how popular the book was in school.  Then I learned Y.A.L.S.A. (the Young Adult Library Services Association) had chosen MEG as a Top Selection, which surprised me because I had written the book for adults, not teens. Then I remembered reading JAWS as a fifteen-year-old and how it led me to read other shark-related stories, and I realized something important was happening.”

Alten's background is in education; he holds a Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate degree in education and is certified to teach in secondary school. After speaking with dozens of teachers who were using MEG in their classroom, Alten founded Adopt-an-Author, a nationwide non-profit, teen reading program offering everything teachers needed to add MEG to their curriculum.

"That was the teachers' number one challenge – having the support materials on hand in order to include the book in their school year curriculum. It's the reason books like The Scarlet Letter (written in 1850), The Great Gatsby (written in 1925), and The Catcher in the Rye (written in 1951), are still being used in high school today. Nothing against the classics, but which story is more likely to get a reluctant teen reader living in 2019 to read – the story of a Puritan woman conceived through an affair back in a 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, or a novel about a 70 foot, 50-ton prehistoric shark that escapes from its purgatory in the Mariana Trench? By registering at AdoptAnAuthor.com, teachers can download tests, quizzes, unit plans, and lots of creative activities that will fuel their students' imaginations. There's also a link to SteveAlten.com which offers free images as well as book and movie trailers…everything they need, and it's all available to them at no charge.”

The MEG author also offers direct contact between himself and students via email and live Q & A sessions in the classroom after the unit has been completed. Over the last twenty years, Alten has personally visited over 100 classrooms, all on his dime. Now in his late fifties with Parkinson's disease, Alten relies more on social media to forge a link between himself and his readers.

Alten has used part of his proceeds from the movie to update and expand the program. He also did a major edit on the novel, fine-tuning the writing on a book he had written 24 years ago, while adding more than a dozen graphic art images and a prequel.

The program remains free to all secondary school teachers, who can register at www.AdoptAnAuthor.com