Volunteer / Young Authors

Publishing at Brewster School

With both of my children, I enjoyed volunteering in their schools through their elementary years. One of my second grade volunteer activities was publishing stories written by the children. Here's a brief run-down of the process:

  • Each story is a multi-phase project and parent volunteers are a necessary part of the process:

  • The children write their stories. They review and polish the stories with their teachers.

  • A parent volunteer types the story, (either at home or at school), and sends it back to the school, (either printed or via e-mail to the child's teacher.)

  • The teacher will proof-read the typed story with the child.

  • If changes are needed, a request will be sent to the typist for revisions. If no changes are needed, the child will illustrate their masterpieces.

  • Finally the illustrated stories are bound (by another parent volunteer...) It is the goal of the school to have each second grade student have a book published by Young Author's Day in the spring.

 

Dear Volunteers

It is a wonderful educational activity for the children and the pride that radiates from their faces to have their own published book is priceless. As a parent, I know first hand, that those little books are "keepers."

Sometimes parents shy away from volunteering to publish because they have trouble with the formatting process. I have created Word templates that you can download to your computer to eliminate this problem.

My apologies to those who don't have Word...

  • With each hand-written story, you will receive a sheet similar to the one below.

  • As a typer, all you need to focus on is the top half.

  • I have made templates using Word that should make it easier to insert the text in the desired format...

  • If you click on the appropriate template below, you will download a pre-formatted word document that you can use to type the story.

  • Here is a brief set of instructions on inserting the text, finishing and formatting the stories.

instruction A template link B template link C template link D template link


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