I Can Be An Author?

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

My first graders started the school year frustrated with writing. Learning to write in Kindergarten was difficult requiring multiple processes, both fine motor and academic, that were not fully developed. This project stems from an effort to inspire them.

I have 28 students, all struggling to find the writer within.

They are part of our school's Dual Language program. This program is designed to help students become bilingual and biliterate by the fifth grade, and it is quite a challenge for young students. During the first week of school, I listened as my class audibly groaned each time I told them it was time for writing. In an effort to change their attitudes, I read aloud Library Mouse, an endearing tale of a mouse that wrote his own stories and placed them around the library for people to read. Children in the library became interested in meeting the author among them. The mouse, knowing he could not come out, prepared a tissue box with a mirror hidden inside. When the children in the library came to meet the author, they looked in the tissue box and saw their own reflection. Next to the box was a stack of blank books. The children in the library began writing their own stories and the librarian placed them all on a special shelf.

My Project

Armed with my own special shelf, I challenged my students to write their own stories to fill the shelf. This was the inspiration they needed. Now my students are excited to write a new story for the shelf. They even ask if they can write at home! Many, though, still struggle with what to write. To further inspire them, I am requesting two resources that will help develop creativity. The first is a daily writing prompt journal. The writing prompts will expose them to many different themes and settings, thus sparking imagination. The second is the build-a-story flip charts. The flip charts are designed to allow students to flip through multiple characters, settings and problems to create customizable stories. Lastly, to help my students really feel like true authors, I am asking for blank books they can publish their pieces in. Once a student has written, revised and edited their story, they will be given a chance to publish like a real author. They will design their own book!

I started the year with 28 students who groaned at the thought of writing.

Now they are starting to see the fun in writing. The resources I am requesting will help develop their creativity, something that is severely lacking from elementary writing today. Thank you for your time and support.