Educator Resources
Free, research-backed resources for educators: teaching guides for AJ’s books, video series on resilience, bullying, and LGBTQ issues affecting students, and toolkits to help librarians advocate for author visits at their schools.
AJ created these because she’s a school counselor first and an author second. She knows what actually helps students versus what just looks like it does. Everything here is grounded in real training and built to be useful in real classrooms. Use them, share them, send them under your own name. No credit required, nothing expected in return.
Looking to book AJ for a school visit?
Visit the School Visits page for booking & scholarship details.
Teaching Guides
Built for ELA classrooms, library programs, and book clubs, each guide is grounded in real classroom use, not generic publishing-template language.
Sovereign Teacher’s Guide
A four-page classroom companion to book one of the Sovereign Trilogy, designed for grades 6-12. Includes pre-reading discussion questions on group-think and conformity, literary analysis of sensory language and dual storylines, a Connecting to the World project that asks students to design a human rights campaign for the Orphans (with social media, podcast, poster, or article options), and over 15 chapter-by-chapter discussion questions covering foreshadowing, character development, and the book’s central twists. Themes covered: religion, violence, found family, dehumanization, group-think, and selflessness.
Elysium Teacher’s Guide
A four-page classroom companion to book two of the Sovereign Trilogy, designed for grades 6-12. Includes pre-reading discussion on critical thinking and authority (“Because I said so”), a Connecting to the World writing activity on race and representation (Harper is Black-presenting biracial, and Elysium is where she first sees other people who look like her), literary analysis of point of view and tense, and over 20 discussion questions covering plot twists, character transformation, and the book’s central deceptions. Themes covered: religion, violence, found family, racism, groupthink, government interference, and self-sacrifice. Contains spoilers.
Funding & Impact Toolkits
Four toolkits to help librarians and educators make the case for author visits and prove they worked. Built on peer-reviewed research and written for a busy admin audience. Free to use, share, and adapt under your own name.
The Middle School Author Visit Funding Toolkit
Reading motivation collapses between fifth and seventh grade, and middle school librarians keep getting passed over for author visits while elementary gets them year after year. This research-backed toolkit gives you the citations, talking points, and ready-to-send email language to flip that conversation. Free to use, share, and adapt under your own name.
The High School Author Visit Funding Toolkit
In 1976, nearly 40% of U.S. 12th graders read six or more books for pleasure in a year. By 2021-22, it was 13%. High school is the last institutional touchpoint before students leave the K-12 system as readers or non-readers for life. This toolkit gives high school librarians the peer-reviewed citations, talking points, and admin email language to make that case in three minutes flat. Free to use under your own name.
The Middle School Author Visit Impact Measurement toolkit
You won the visit. Now prove it worked. Pre- and post-visit student surveys built around the four mechanisms peer-reviewed research links to middle school reading achievement, plus a no-stats-required analysis guide and a fill-in-the-blank report template you hand directly to admin. Closes the loop so funding the next visit is easier than the last one.
The high School Author Visit Impact Measurement toolkit
The high school companion to the funding toolkit. Pre- and post-visit student surveys measuring the four mechanisms research links to high school reading achievement — choice and autonomy, self-efficacy, reader identity, and intellectual engagement with text — with items written for students who’ll see through any survey that talks down to them. Generate local data that turns one visit into a case for the next.
Teaching videos
Short-form video resources for classroom use, advisory periods, and educator reference. All videos are 2 minutes or less, originally created for TikTok and YouTube Shorts, making them easy to drop into a lesson or share with staff.
Click an image below to view the full series.
Anti-Bullying Strategies
Five short videos walking students through specific strategies for handling verbal bullying. Includes safety guidance for when to involve an adult.
30 Days of Pride Education
30 videos on LGBTQ vocabulary, identity, allyship, and supporting students or kids who come out. Built for parents and teachers who want to understand the fundamentals and respond well.
Bring AJ to Your School
These resources are free and they always will be. But if you want students to actually meet AJ, hear from a counselor-turned-author who doesn’t talk down to them, and have the kinds of conversations these toolkits and videos are designed to start, an in-person or virtual visit is the next step.
Budget tight?
AJ runs a scholarship program for Kansas City metro schools that can’t accommodate the standard rate. The Dark Books. Real Talk. Zero Cost. application priority deadline is May 22, 2026; final deadline is September 15, 2026.