transforming from writers to authors

Transforming Students from Writers to Authors: ''Stories of Our

Grandparents.''

Help your students document history by sharing “Stories of Our Grandparents.” Using online resources lulu.com and voicethread.com, help your students collaborate with their parents, classmates and local businesses and Historical Societies to capture tales of days gone by, and present them to the world in a combination of book form, images and sounds.

NCTIES 2009 Raleigh, NCThursday, 2:00 PM Room 302A

Presented by:

Special Thanks:Jim Moulton - http://jimmoulton.org/. It was through his discussion on Lulu.com that this idea started to solidify.Bethany V. Smith - http://transparentlearning.blogspot.com/ . She helped us craft the perfect title.

Keith Ledford Technology Facilitator West McDowell Jr. HighMarion, NC

Eric Cole Technology Facilitator East McDowell Jr. HighMarion, NC

The Bottom Line

We want to provide you with the framework for a project

The project can be as big or as small as you have energy

Student Writers WILL become published authors

Student Artists WILL become published artists Stories will be preserved and retold. A piece of

cultural history will be landmarked

Gather Support

You cannot and should not attempt this alone. Get Teachers and community members

(Historical Society) onboard Make it a known that all stories will find a voice. Invite Parents, Grandparents, local media to

participate in the process. Make this something that belongs to the community

Gather Stories

The goal is for the students to communicate with an elder family member, and relate an interesting story from their family.

Students should devise framework questions and rubrics for the interviews.

Writing for an audience WILL produce better work. They could write down, but hopefully they will also

record the stories. Recorded stories can be transcribed later, but those

MP3s are valuable and can be reused.

Gather Input

Create a Book Publishing Committee made up of students, community, teachers, and parents

Select the stories for the book. Have Art classes create art for the book based

on some of the selected stories The committee will select thematic art for the

book. Keep all that artwork

SUBMIT your Book

Create your Lulu.com account and upload your book.

Explore other Self Publishing sites Determine if you will try to make a profit or

break even

“When you ‘publish your book’ you will be asked how much you want to make on the sale of each copy - if you say "$0.00" then the download copy, in PDF form, will be free, and the hard copy will be sold at cost.” - Jim Moulton - http://jimmoulton.org/.

“You can choose to make $1 or $2 on the hard copy, and offer the PDF for free.If you do make some money on it, you'll need to supply tax information before you can "get the profits."  In other words, you'll need to give them a W9 type document.” - Jim Moulton - http://jimmoulton.org/.  

Audio Video Choices 

Voice Thread

Audacity 

PhotoStory 

MovieMaker 

IMovie PhotoBucket

Jamstudio.com

VoiceThread

Audacity

PhotoStory

Movie Maker

Photo Bucket

Transforming Writers into AuthorsThe Plan:

Students gather generational stories from grandparents, parents, or relatives and capture them as writers. Along the way, they learn the value of capturing a piece of history.The final product will be more than a self published book; it will be an experience in collaborating with the community, and a lesson in interviewing, storytelling, art, podcasting and marketing.Bring in the local Historical Society to help in story selection and provide stories.Set up recording stations for parents and grandparents to come in and record their stories.Have art classes provide the illustrations.Have business classes discuss the marketing and promotion of the book.Once your community has decided what is to be published. You have the task of getting the rest of the work out for people to see. This is where podcasting, voicethread, moviemaker, imovie and audacity come in to play. These tools can be used to tell the unpublished stories digitally.

Links and Resources

Lulu.com Selfpublishing.comA Directory of self publishing companiesCopyright your work basics: http://lulublog.com/2009/01/09/copyrighting-your-work-101/Links for tools:VoicethreadAudacityPhotoBucketFlickrDigital Story telling linksJamstudio

Contact Us!

We hope to post our progress here: http://mcpstech.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

Eric Cole Email: eric.cole@mcdowell.k12.nc.us Skype: ericdcole Twitter: ericcole Plurk: ericcole

Keith Ledford Email: keith.ledford@mcdowell.k12.nc.us Skype: keithledford1 Twitter: keithledford