publishing student writing

Welcome to Publishing Student Writing

Sherry ChapmanDaniel J. Savage Middle school

http://mschapmanonline.com

Schapman@sylvan.k12.ca.us

Students should see their work published

Writing takes on new meaning when students realize anyone in the world can read their work.

Writing is no longer just an assignment.

Students take their work much more seriously.

Our boo

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ProcessCreate a working folder.

Create folders for student writing.

Put pictures for the cover in the folder.

Create the formatted file and upload.

Create a color cover.

Add Lulu book link to your website.

www.lulu.com

Let's publish!Lulu has many options for publishing. This is only one of them. I choose not to purchase an ISBN to save the cost, but that option is

available. The ISBN allows you to sell on other sites.

TimelineBegin writing early. I begin the first month of school.

Create folders for classes if you have a server or set up a google.docs site or a drop site such as mediafire.com for students to be able to submit work from home.

Plan word processing time. Plan more than you think you will need.

Leave time for revision around the second month of school.

Set a deadline to turn in writing (Nov. 15).

Set guidelines for student word processing.

Use one standard font that is readable.

No bold, underline, center, color, tabs, or using the spacebar for spacing.

Everything should be left justified.

I ask them to skip lines for paragraphs instead of using indent.

Decide on the format of each section in the book.

Title

Blank line

Text

Blank line

First and last name or initial

Permission Slip

There is a sample permission slip on my website. You can download and adapt it.

Remember that copyright law says when someone writes something it belongs to them. The parents are simply giving permission for the student work to be published in this book.

Quiet Midnight

Midnight

All dark

But that light of the moon

All quiet

But that sound of the crickets

Nothing in sight

But a light fog

The fog makes a mist

Which shimmers in the moonlight

On the dandelions

The moon is partly shaded

By the black clouds

All is quiet at midnight

Megan Johnson

Timeline for creating the bookonce the student word processing is done

Nov.-Dec. find a student who is responsible and knows how to use Word or another word processing program. At one period a day working on the book, it will take several weeks to paste in and format 200 pages.

Plan the organization of the book and paste the writing in sections:

Poetry

Short story

Essay

Other

Decide if you want to try to put the writing in alphabetical order by last names before you begin.

I place them at random for interest and my sanity.

Now you have a couple of hundred pages of kid text.....and it's January

Have the student editor select all of the text and choose one font for the whole book. You can change the title page at the end.

If you want to use different fonts in each section, select that section and choose a font.

Scan through the document and remove unnecessary spaces. Decide on spacing between entries, how the author names will look, and so forth before you begin formatting.

February and it's Clean-up time

Run spell check

Proofread

Read everything and tidy up the grammar

I do this myself. It takes about four hours.

This is a good time to check to make sure you have all the permission slips.

Formatting

I use Word7 or later for this part. You can save it back as a previous version before you upload it. Lulu likes Word03.

I have a student create the table of contents in a separate file. Copy and paste from the document file so you don’t miss anyone rather than retyping the TOC.

Format the text file in the Lulu template. This can be downloaded from Lulu.

Add the table of contents to the text file.

Put in a section break after the TOC.

Put in the pagination for the body of the book using the Word7 or later format. This will save you a great deal of struggle. Then save it back to a Word03 format.

Put in page breaks after you have saved it back to Word03. A template is available with pagination on my presentation page.

Publishing in MarchOn-demand publishers

I have had good luck with lulu.com

Create an account

Upload your book

View and make sure it formatted correctly

Create a cover

Submit for publishing

You will get a link to your book

Vicast

There is a vicast on the website linked to YouTube or you can download the PPTX version and play the slide video.

Remember that if you get lost anywhere in the process, go back to My Lulu on your account, and you can pick-up where you left off.

If you need to change something, simply delete the file and start over.

The Beauty of This...

It is free!You can add profit and decide where the publisher needs to send it.

I created a club, but you can also send it to a charity.

The book gets paid for when someone buys it.

No cost to the school.

Link your book to your website

Its easy for parents to buy the book.

Kids can find it.

Creating an Online Literary Magazine

The Bobcat Writer’s Cafe

Savage Book Club

Use a free Blog site

www.wordpress.com

www.edublogs.com

Note: edublogs has an upgraded supporter version at $40 per year that gives you more bells and whistles such as the book club background.

Create a free class website

Use one of the free blog sites

Link multiple blogs together by adding a page and linking it to another Blog. The Blog will show up as a page attached to your page.

Add pages to one primary site and add content.