Title: Teacher Notes
Course: Coming Soon: Writing a Children's Book

Background notes for Children's story unit.

Preparing for this unit:

When I first taught creative writing, the children's book unit included a field trip to an elementary school where my students were paired one-on-one with a first or second grade student. They conducted interviews on the first visit and then presented the finished books on the second visit. This unit was always very successful, and I always had 100% participation from my students. (I reminded them that by not following through with this assignment, they would not only be affecting their grades, they would also be disappointing a child!)

Before beginning this unit, it's important to find an elementary teacher who will be willing to share his/her class. The total time involvement for the elementary teacher is fairly short. The elementary classroom needs to have access to the Internet and have the capability to record student responses to the VoiceThread interview. This is really the only part of the process that the elementary teacher will be directly involved with. It is also helpful if the elementary teacher is familiar with VoiceThread before beginning the unit, and he or she needs to have a VoiceThread account. (Educators can apply for a free, upgraded account in VoiceThread.)

There are also several requirements for the high school students before beginning this online unit. First, each student needs to have an email address in order to open a free VoiceThread account. At my high school, we can create email accounts for any students who do not already them. It is helpful if students have access to PowerPoint, since this is the format used to present the stories. However, if PowerPoint is not available, the Google documents presentation tools works very well too. The students also need access to microphones so that they can record their interview questions and narration for the final stories.