At the end of April, each student brought home a personally published information book. I am often asked if the students write and publish these books by themselves. The answer is, "Yes!" All of the work is completely done by them. Students begin by learning preparatory skills at the beginning of the school year, such as using informational text features, keyboarding, formatting Word documents, reading online text, writing paragraphs, etc. After choosing a topic, they read informational books and approved websites to answer research questions. Then, they draft, revise, and edit a paragraph before typing it and selecting a picture that matches the text. Each one of these steps is practiced multiple times as a class or with groups and partners. They also analyze other authors' informational paragraphs to improve their author's craft. The process of actually researching and writing the books takes about two months.
This year, a first grade teacher happened to be passing by our classroom when the finished books were on the students' desks. She eagerly invited us to visit her class that very afternoon to read to her students. We also had third graders interviewed by reporters on Altara TV. Our class has been so excited to share their own treasured written word as published authors!
This year, a first grade teacher happened to be passing by our classroom when the finished books were on the students' desks. She eagerly invited us to visit her class that very afternoon to read to her students. We also had third graders interviewed by reporters on Altara TV. Our class has been so excited to share their own treasured written word as published authors!
Reading our newly published books aloud. What a special day!
