Archives for January 2011

In my classroom, we use the writer’s workshop model, which give students the opportunity to listen to quality literature, write their own stories, and go through each stage of the writing process. In addition to writer’s workshop we also do interactive writing as a class. This is where all the students “share the pen” and we write sentences and stories together, remembering to use the sounds we know to spell words and also parts of a sentence (“Don’t forget a capital!”, I always say.).

Right before winter vacation we started working on a class story. The students got SO into this project they asked if we could make it into a book. Cool! I thought! Sure we can. I thought I might print out the story on card stock, three-hole punch the paper, throw some ribbon through it and call it a day. But in reality you can do something so much cooler and so much more professional than a hand-made book, through Tikatok, a company that publishes student’s writing into real hardcover books. When I shared this information with my class they were thrilled! I loved the looks on their faces and the excitement in the air when they found out their story was going to be an actual hardcover book. We typed up the story, everyone got to illustrate a page, and tada! It’s ready to be published!:

As a class, we’ve decided to buy two copies, one for our classroom and one for the school library. What an awesome way to give the kids great confidence in their work. It inspires and enables them to be authors and illustrators and to actually have their work published! And once your work gets published, it is also added to the Tikatok website, where other students can read your stories and make comments. Our first endeavor on Tikatok is a class book, but as a teacher I can make individual student accounts so the kids can begin publishing individual stories. Once the stories are done, parents and family members will have the opportunity to view the books online and purchase their own copies if they want.

A really neat company that I am so glad I found!