Suggested Audience: Grades 6-8
Participants: Up to 4 sites connected
Program Goal: To introduce students to the writing process by creating a publishing house in the classroom.
Preparation
for Program: Patricia and Fred McKissack meet with teachers over interactive
TV two weeks prior to the scheduled videoconference author's visit to
discuss the goals of the program with them. Teachers describe their vision
of the project and make a plan to prepare their students for the videoconference.
Preparation for the students includes: 1) reviewing a biographical sketch
of the McKissacks provided by them; 2) reading three of the following
books: The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, A
Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, Jesse Jackson: A
Biography, Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman?, Black Diamond:
Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues, Rebels Against Slavery,
Run Away Home; 3) keeping a journal for one to two weeks of any
observations of places, people, and lists of facts from which they may
write stories; and 4) dividing into groups to formulate questions, five
of which they will be able to ask the McKissacks at the time of the videoconference.
Each class should choose five student speakers to ask these questions
over the ITV. The McKissacks also recommend that students read How
a Book is Made by Aliki about how books are published.
Program Description: The McKissacks will present a talk on the writing process and how an author writes a story. Possible topics for focus include: facing the blank page, coming up with ideas, drafting a story, revising, coming up with a title, beginnings, middles, endings, and publishing. The topic will have been pre-selected by the teachers during their previous videoconference with the McKissacks. There will be a fifteen minute question and answer time for the students to ask their prepared questions about the writing process.
Follow up activities: Each class could divide into groups that would model a division of the publishing house, for example, sales, marketing, editing, illustration, layout, writing, etc. All the students write stories, and then the editors select four of five pieces that they think should be published. These pieces go through the process of the publishing house business. The McKissacks will edit and give feedback on these manuscripts from each participating site either by email or snail mail. The students could then publish a book of stories together for distribution through their school buildings. The third ITV connection creates another avenue for publication of five stories per site. Students read their stories and get feedback from the McKissacks and other participating sites. Another possible option would be for the students to create Powerpoint presentations of their work and share them using the document camera.
Handouts For This Lesson
Who's Involved in Publishing a
Book? (web page)
These handouts are pdf files and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to open
them:
