2009 Case Study – Pilot Program
Carillon Elementary School, Oviedo, Florida
"What a wonderful way to end the year – the publishing community is 22 fourth-grade authors richer!"
Highlights from a teacher's feedback:
We held an author signing on the last day of school and invited the school district Writing Specialist. After students shared, she commented that the project was really all about revision. What a compliment – and it's true. Real writing for publication is about revision. The collaborative nature of this software facilitates the pro- cess and makes it so meaningful for students. They loved reading and responding to each others' stories. They also felt validated as authors the minute their stories were uploaded and they could see them in 'book form.' They truly wanted their stories to be perfect before we sent them off.
Fourth-graders in Florida take a high-stakes writing test in February, called the FCAT. Often, most of their writing instruction is geared towards writing essays. It is so important for them to learn that writing is for far more than performing on a test. Publishing a real book is a great way to do just that.
Thanks again and congratulations on producing such excellent software.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Clausen-Grace
From Mrs. Clausen-Grace's Fourth Grade Class
Thank you for allowing us to pilot the ClassroomAuthors® software. We couldn't believe how easy it was to put our stories into book format and to edit from there. We loved using the post-it notes to offer each other feedback (although we didn't always appreciate getting feedback!) It actually helped us make our stories better.
When it was all over we were so excited to get our books! We had an author celebration where we shared all that we had done to get to publication. Our parents and the VIPS (very important people) who came were really impressed by the work we had done. In fact, very few of them had ever published a book but we all have now.
Feel free to read our stories – if you ever get lost in the wilds of Florida, you'll know how to survive!