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Goal

: If I receive this grant, it will be my sixth time doing this project. (We first did this project in spring of 2019.)
My goals for my Creative Writers are these:
To use the writing process to develop, write, revise, proofread, illustrate, and publish children’s books for a real audience, and then to deliver them to that audience – selected first graders at Blue Lake Elementary. This process encompasses many skills, and requires a high degree of time management, creativity, and self-motivation. Unlike most writing done in school, this writing will be for a real audience - the first grader they are writing for. It is often said "the best way to learn is to teach it yourself". By allowing students to write, publish, and read their book to an elementary student...they are effectively teaching that student their story. It also offers a chance for students to give back to a school they may have attended and to encourage the humanitarian connection between writing and education.

For the past six years, I have had Art students involved in contributing illustrations to some of these books. My goals for these art students are to 1. Give them a chance to collaborate with a writer on an actual published project for a real audience; 2. Help them learn about working on an art project with deadlines; 3. Develop art work from a writer’s words.

My goals for the first graders are these:
Students will develop their love of reading. These students will have a book written especially for them, and this will encourage them to read it. It will be based on their interests and preferences and it will be something they can bring home and keep. Students will be able to use their reading skills to analyze and discuss their books. The creative writing students will using the literary elements of plot, characterization, setting, themes, and irony in creating their stories, so those are elements the first grade students can draw back out of the books.

A new goal for this year is to expedite the writing and illustrating process a number of ways. We are going to attempt to have the books done and delivered by Winter Break!
 

 

Category

Other -  

 

What will be done with my students

Students at Blue Lake Elementary School will be surveyed about their interests during their media time to assist with determination of book topics. Based on the results of the interest surveys, students in Creative Writing classes at DeLand High School will spend a couple of months class writing and illustrating their own Children's book (though some may have help from an illustrator from the Art class). I will then publish five copies of each book through the self-publishing website lulu.com:
One copy for the author to keep, a second copy to be delivered in person to a first-grade student at Blue Lake Elementary School, a third for the Early Childhood classroom; a forth for the Blue Lake Elementary Media Center; a fifth for the Creative Writing classroom; a possible sixth copy would go to any illustrators involved.
After the books are published, high school students will take a field study to Blue Lake Elementary. There, they will meet the elementary student they wrote for, read the book to the student one-on-one, and discuss the book with them. Authors will sign their creations and share in a celebration at Blue Lake Elementary School. Emphasis will be placed on narrative structure, characterization, elements of morality/fable, and audience consideration with implantation of grade-level appropriate vocabulary.
The following B.E.S.T. Standards will be addressed:
ELA.12.C.1.2: Write complex narratives using appropriate techniques to establish multiple
perspectives and convey universal themes. (Narrative Writing is a type of composition that tells a story, the elements of which may be fiction or
nonfiction. Narration of the story may take various forms (first, second, third person, etc.). The story events
may be presented sequentially or in an order that stimulates reader interest. Narrative writing includes the
writer’s use of genre-specific elements, including but not limited to: characterization through dialogue,
vivid description, sensory details, foreshadowing, and flashback.)
ELA.12.C.1.5: Improve writing by considering feedback from adults, peers, and/or online
editing tools, revising to enhance purpose, clarity, structure, and style. ELA.12.C.3.1: Follow the rules of standard English grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and
spelling appropriate to grade level.
ELA.12.C.5.2: Create, publish, and share multimedia texts through a variety of digital formats. (Although the final product will be a hard-copy, the production process will be digital).

Because students will be reading each other’s drafts and final books and discussing them on multiple levels, and because they will be discussing the books with the first-grade students, the following reading standards will also be practiced during the process:
For first grade:
ELA.1.R.1.1: Identify and describe the main story elements in a story. ELA.1.R.1.2: Identify and explain the moral of a story. ELA.1.R.1.3: Explain who is telling the story using context clues.
For high-schoolers:
ELA.12.R.1.1: Evaluate how key elements enhance or add layers of meaning and/or style in a
literary text and explain the functional significance of those elements in interpreting the text. ELA.12.R.1.2: Analyze two or more themes and evaluate their development throughout a
literary text.
ELA.12.R.1.3: Evaluate the development of character perspective, including conflicting
perspectives.
 

 

Benefits to my students

This project encourages purposeful writing for an intended audience. For creative writing students, this will be an exercise in writing authentically and actually publishing for a real audience. Their books will also be on permanent display in the Blue Lake Library.
For the Blue Lake students, they get something few children get – a book written especially for them, a book they can keep. There are intangible benefits as well – these students get to have an older student as a role model for writing, and a memento of the experience – the book written for them.
By providing a real-life reader for the high school creative writers, their work will merit more attention and care. Alternatively, the younger elementary students will benefit from the one-on-one reading and personalized piece of literature. Both writer and reader will likely gain an appreciation for children's literature and acquire a positive association with reading and writing.
 

 

Budget Narrative

I use the Lulu.com publishing platform to create the books. A full-color, hard cover book, depending upon the length costs anywhere from 10 to 15 dollars. Twenty books times five copies (one for the author, one for the student, one for the Blue Lake library, one for Mr. Finkle’s classroom collection to be used as examples) adds up to somewhere just over $1,000 – most likely more. We completed 21 of a potential 25 books last year, so we had to ask for an additional $600 from DeLand High’s SAC. I don’t know the cost of the books exactly until they are completed: page count, black and white vs. color printing determine the price of each book. This year I have applied for the Hollis Mini-grant from Stetson University. The education department there would like to see this program expand, and will most likely fund any additional books over the initial $1,000 FUTURES grant. 

 

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