Today we’re doing an ASK program with author Jim Stovall on his book, The Ultimate Gift. This program is provided in partnership with several organizations as follows:

• Author coordination/liaison: Elaine Shuck, Polycom, Inc.
• Event coordination: Janine Lim, Berrien County ISD,
• Blog and Event Facilitation and Bridging: Jim Wenzloff and Arnie Comer, Macomb ISD.

In addition to reading this report, you may wish to review the Polycom Press Release on this program. We are delighted and thankful that Polycom is sponsoring this event and others like it!

We also thank Oklahoma State University for providing a videoconference room for Jim Stovall to connect to the students.

In preparation for this event, students have been writing responses and stories for the various gifts presented in the book. They also followed the ASK process in journaling and preparing quality questions for the event.

The classes participating in this session include:

• Algonquin Middle School, MI
• Bayless Intermediate School, MO
• Mad River Middle School, OH
• North Middle School, SD
• River Valley Middle School, MI

The program started with Jim Wenzloff, Macomb ISD, giving a welcome and reviewing the procedures for the program.

Following this, Jim Stovall began with a welcome message with his background and experiences with life and especially on writing books. Then we began with questions from each school, rotating with two questions from each school. Some questions included:

• If you had to pick one gift, which one would you pick and why?
• If you had to add another gift, what would it be?
• Have you thought about expanding each gift into its own book?
• What problems in your life inspired you to write?
• When you became a writer, was that your first dream, or did you have another dream before you wanted to be a writer?
• Do you think the lessons in the Ultimate Gift are directed toward a specific age group?
• In the book there is a blind man with a wonderful sense of humor. Is this character similar to you?
• In your movie, the Ultimate Gift, who would you like to play the character of Jason?
• When you were younger, did you have any books that were inspirational to your life?
• In the book we read about friendship. Do you have a friend who means a lot to you?
• In the book, Jason wrote about what he’d do on the last day of his life. What would you do on the last day of your life?
• Which gift do you think the world needs the most of?
• At the beginning of each chapter, you have a quote. Why did you choose to begin the chapter that way?
• Of all the characters you created, which character did you like the best & why?

What a wonderful interaction with the students and the author! It’s incredible how friendly and accessible he was to the students.

We are doing this event again, March 6, 2006, and we have room for one more class to participate! Details here.