The Story of Our After School

Art Literacy
Time Multi-session
Age 7 & up
Group Size 10 or more
Tags Creative Writing, Teamwork, Writing

Write a book together about something you all know a lot about!

Collaborative writing is a process that requires a set of skills above and beyond those used in writing individually.  Students need to have an understanding of their own ideas so that they can present them to their peers; they must read and comprehend other children’s writing, understanding how everyone’s piece fits into the larger project; and they must review and revise their writing to create a cohesive final book.

Preparation

Gather several different kinds of books from your afterschool center or local library. Make sure that they are appropriate to your students’ age level. Non-fiction books are best, since the story of your afterschool is a true one!

The Story of Our After School
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Suggested Materials

  • Paper
  • Pencils
  • Crayons
  • Markers
  • Stapler, bookbinder, or a hole punch and string
  • Books
1

Make it Matter

Opening Discussion

Ask your students what their favorite books are. Do they like books with pictures or without them? Do they like fiction or nonfiction books? Show them the books you’ve gathered and let them look through them. What are the different parts of a book? Write down the list that your students come up with.

The Challenge

You need more kids to attend your afterschool – write a book about your afterschool program that tells other kids all about it!

2

Make it Happen

Doing the Activity

  1. This activity can be done with children working in pairs or individually, depending on how you think they will work best.
  2. Review the parts of a book from your opening discussion. What parts should this book have? Develop a list and make sure it includes title, authors, a section on what the afterschool program is all about, and illustrations. The book will have one title page and one author page which will list the name of all of the students. Each child or pair of children should write one page for the book.
  3. Pass out the materials and ask each child or pair to begin writing.
3

Make it Click

Let’s Talk About It

After 5-10 minutes, bring your students together to have a quick discussion. What will they write about? Are they including any drawings? What will they be? This discussion should last no more than a few minutes.

4

Make it Better

Build On What They Talked About

After hearing from everyone else, has anyone changed their idea? How can they all work together to create a book with pages that all fit together? With a better idea of what the other children are writing about, have your students finish their pages. Collect all of the pages when they are done and create the final book by binding it with staples, punching holes and tying it together with string or using a bookbinder.

Suggestions

  • Someone will need to create the cover/title page. If a child or team finishes early, you could have them work on this, but they will need to have a good idea of what everyone is writing about so that their cover is representative of the whole class. Another early finisher could work on the “authors” page.
  • As an extension to this activity, you could have students select and read a book. When they are finished, hand out paper, crayons, markers, etc. and ask them to create an illustration of their favorite part of the book.
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