I have always loved writing, and it breaks my heart to see how little value it is given in our education system today. The primary and almost sole focus of writing instruction (at least in Texas), is academic writing in response to reading. While that type of writing is necessary and has its value, it hardly inspires students, or anyone else for that matter. Writing improves literacy and language skills, develop critical thinking and organizational skills, and promotes emotional intelligence. Writing for different purposes and audiences, and especially writing for one’s own enjoyment and fulfillment is important. Likewise, students ability to view themselves as writers who have something of value to share with others has a significant impact on their sense of self, their confidence, and their ability to communicate. I could rally get on my soapbox about all this, but instead I will stop here and say that student’s relationship with and ability to write matters - a lot. For these reasons and more, I decided to bind my students written works from this year in their own personal books, and celebrate their writing with a book launch. The result was an absolute joy, and the event turned out to be one of my favorites from this year. I intend to make a tradition of it.
Students were advised of the upcoming publication about halfway though the year, and I announced the book launch a month or two before the event.
I invited parents, teachers, and classes from other grade levels, all building staff members, and even a few special guests from the district. In other words, students knew this was a big deal.
Our amazing librarian granted us the use of the library and allowed us to rearrange the furniture to suit our needs. There was a lot of shuffling. My partner teachers helped me get it started.
Tables were placed around the perimeter of the room in a sort of open box shape that allowed guests to stop and visit with each author. Students had their books in front of them (or beside and behind them) for visitors to look at. They also had a copy of one selected poem (short enough to print on half sheets) to give away and sign for visitors. Guests were invited to ask questions about and praise the work, to be read to (for our younger kiddos), and to ask for an autographed poem. Guests were also permitted to select one free bookmark from a large selection designed by the authors (and yours truly). I also prepared a photo backdrop for the event.
If you intend to try this (and I absolutely recommend that you do), please be advised that preparing for our book launch was A LOT of work. Reluctant or slow writers needed extra time and attention, so that no one would be left out. That extra push is required throughout the entire year. Then there’s the time and work required to assemble the books. I used Canva to provide writing templates, and because most assignments are turned in individually, I had to copy and paste each individual work into a collection file for each student. This also meant conferencing with each student to be sure that I did not miss anything, especially from students who did not finish or turn in prior assignments. Then, for each file, I had to arrange the pages to print front and back in a way that would place illustrations next to texts, rather than on the back page of a text. When printing each file, I had to double-check and reprint many times because the printer would randomly block out some of the images or even the text (still not sure why that happened). After getting all of that done, I spiral-bound each book myself, using a spiral-binding machine in our office. This whole process took forever (I spent my weekend and then some to print and bind the books). Even after all of that time and effort, I would do this again. My students were so proud of their work (however much or however little they had), and they were so excited to hold their very own book in their hands.
On the day of our book launch, many students dressed up, as requested. They did a wonderful job of discussing their work with visitors, and they absolutely beamed at every request for an autograph, letting me know more than once that they needed more copies of their work to share. Parents, former teachers, and fellow students shared in our authors’ pride. It was a great opportunity for our community to help students recognize themselves as writers and encourage their growth. I’m already thinking about ways to make it even better next year. If you’re an RLA teacher, I invite you to join me.