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TOP STORY OF THE DAY: Fourth Grade Authors
You may not know this, but Forest Park Elementary has several published authors. And they are all students.
On April 28, the students in the fourth-grade class of Piper German and Emily Turpen were surprised with a copy of their published book of poetry, “Nature All Around Us.”
“This week was the start of state testing, so we kept the books hidden until our reward day. It has been hard to keep the secret that the books were delivered last week,” explained German.
The students started writing their poems in late February and continued through to mid-March.
According to German, “The poetry for the book is based on nature. Each student has three poems that were submitted for the book. The first poem is about themselves, where they had to learn about vocabulary describing their own character traits.”
Next, students learned about their environment, animal habitats, and biomes.
“Students had to research a biome. Then they wrote a poem from their research describing the ecosystem, animals, insect, or plants from that area of the planet. Their final poem compared two things in nature that are opposites, like predator vs prey, winter vs summer, or rainforest vs desert,” said German.
Once the writing was completed and mailed to the publisher, Studentreasures, it took a little less than one month to receive the books.
The students were very surprised when they received their books on Friday. Each and every student was able to get a copy of the book. There had been some students who could not afford the book but an anonymous donor made sure every one got a book.
So, just how does it feel to be a published author?
“I think it is exciting and a great honor for anybody,” said published author, Jules Bell.
Bell added, “I am very proud and proud of the class and just everybody.”
Her fellow author, Leah Raley, thinks the book is “really cool.”
Raley noted the publication process taught her patience and to be published “is amazing.”
Raley was most excited that all of her classmates “would be getting a copy. That is really cool. I am so glad everyone gets one.”
The idea to have the work published is not a new one to German.
“When I was a teacher in Houston, I would have my students write poetry to help them learn the basics of grammar. I had several classes to write and produce books in the past,” she explained.
For some of these Forest Park students, this is not the first time they have been published.
“Many of the students wrote and published a book when they were in first grade in Mrs. Adams’ class, so this is their second book to be published. Mrs. Adams continues to have her first grade students write My SuperHero book along with Mrs. Madsen, Forest Park’s other first grade teacher,” said German.
German noted, “even the most reluctant student writer gets behind this project and produces amazing results.”