Dee Scallan (dscallan@comcast.net), author of the Moby Pincher Series will provide a series of writing workshops in the elementary and middle schools. This “We Want to Be Authors” Project aligns with the Comprehensive Curriculum and requires parental involvement, has a cross-generational component with pre and post testing for quality assessment. The objective of this Project is to enhance creativity through the art of writing, create parental involvement and engender civic minded students. The end product will be a printed bound book authored and illustrated by the students. The writing residency will require a full week, once a day, for 2hours. The students will be instructed to write and illustrate a hard bound book that will be printed and placed in the school library for all the students of the school. This project will require parental involvement, as the parents are informed by material sent home in the student’s folder and are asked to support, assist, and interact with their child during this project. Additionally, to enhance civic mindedness a cross-generational component, the books will also be shared with local nursing homes and senior centers in the community, with the authors doing a reading series. The writing process will have a great impact on students, teachers, and the community. The impact on students and teachers will be enormous as it will teach across the Comprehensive Curriculum targeting Information Literacy Skills (9 technology included), GLE's and Benchmarks in English, writing, computer skills, and technology, science, art, and the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum Activity #1 (including LEAP material). The students will begin the writing process with a pre-assessment test and a pre-writing paper based on four-square writing. There will be a discussion on fiction and non-fiction literature, the four purposes for writing, what materials they will use for research. They will be taken through the writing process--brainstorming, researching, pre-writing/drafting, use of adjectives, compound sentences, similes, words in a series, exaggeration, punctuation, etc. They will engage the book publishing aspects as they will need to proofread/edit/revise, conference, illustrate, format, and print with the final result a printer's copy to be approved by students. Upon the authors’ approval, the book will be printed and bound. The children will end the class by participating in a post assessment exam. The school will host an Authors’ Day for the participating students, inviting friends and family. On Authors’ Day the hardbound book will be presented to the school librarian. The Authors will read the story to younger students; refreshments will be available; and the Authors will sign their fellow Authors’ books.
The book will then be placed online www.mobypincher.com for students, teachers, and parents to view. The book will be read as the illustrations are shown. There will be 4 or 5 interactive questions following each book for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Elementary students. This will promote reading comprehension skills and form a foundation for the Accelerated Reading program. This has been requested by Louisiana early childhood teachers.
The books written for children by children are an enormous inspiration for other students. Younger children are inspired to read what children have written, and older children are inspired to read, as well as write, because they also want to be authors. The students realize that these books are in the school library forever and hundreds of children for years to come will read their book even their own children. This project proves that it is possible to be an author!
This project targets, as well as what is listed in the above document, the following specific English/Language Arts in the GLE’s:
Reading and Responding
Standard 1 and Standard 7
Writing
Standard 2
Writing/Proofreading
Standard 4
Speaking and Listening
Standard 4
The Writing Prompt Section of the LEAP TEST and the iLEAP TEST is directly targeted with this project. We are seeing an increase in writing scores on the tests.
This project can also be used to connect literacy to other curriculum areas such as art, technology skills, and science.
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