The second grade students of Vanessa Boyle and Harriet Gustus at West Penn Elementary School recently became published authors.

The students were able to write and design their own books about landforms, incorporating subjects such as science, reading, language and social studies together."We basically got the idea when working on a story in our new Reading Series. It was about a desert. We decided to extend the lesson," said Boyle.The students were assigned the task of developing a diorama to represent some type of landform. Some examples that they created were forests, deserts, beaches, mountains, and swamps."The students had to have characters within their diorama, which could have been fake people, animals, or anything else they wanted to use as a character that would make sense," said Boyle. "They also had to be able to explain their setting/landform."The students were walked through several steps of the writing process."We read them tons of different examples of beginning of stories, middles, and ends," explained Boyle. "We talked about what each part of the story contained and we talked about the plot of a story (introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion.)."Students also learned paragraph development and how to use topic sentences. The dioramas gave them a visual for their stories."The last step prior to having them write was that we had them stand up and talk about their story," remarked Boyle. "They already had it mapped out in their minds and were able to talk about it. The students also shared ideas with students to help them add more details to it and make their story more engaging."Several weeks were spent working one on one with the students, helping them plan out thoughts, adding details, fixing errors and putting together their books.Once completed, they had to do a final copy to prepare them for their typing assignment."We worked together with Jolene Barron, the technology teacher, to type our stories," said Boyle.Students expanded their technology and typing skills. It took about 2-3 classes for everyone to complete their typing, which was then proofread before being added to the book template."We took each student's picture with their dioramas to add to our book," explained Boyle. " I used Blurb.com before so I was experienced with the templates. This site allows you to create anything really. You have choices of what type of books you would like to do, size, color, etc."Students were able to choose their titles, as well as their page colors. Boyle then put together the books for both classes and submitted them for publication."The students do have a copyright to the book," she said. "We displayed it at the Science Showcase this year for parents to get first dibs on purchasing a copy, their choice of hard or soft cover."The books have arrived, and the teachers have continued to expand our writing skills with the students, having them work on autobiographies and biographies about someone in history."In both Science and Social Studies, we discussed landforms and certain features of the landforms. When teaching a lesson, we try to show how it connects across the curriculum and help students make sense of things," stated Boyle. "They really enjoyed their projects and their writing has excelled this year. Overall, it was a great experience and they'll have something to remember."