FORT BENNING, Ga., (March 2 2016) -- Each year Fort Benning schools must establish two school improvement goals. This year E.A. White Elementary School seeks to enhance students' language usage and writing skills.
Students within each grade level will have the opportunity to practice different writing styles.
"Our students are writing creative, informative, expository, and even persuasive pieces," Mallory explained.
As part of their new writing initiative, E.A. White offers an after school program to students that will give them the opportunity to self-publish. Gifted teacher, Jasmin Probst, oversees the Self-Publishing Book Club. The end result is to have students publish their work using the self-publishing site createspace.com.
The opportunity to self-publish, however, isn't limited to her gifted class or the after school club, she said. Probst described the process that students undergo as entirely creative.
"I enjoy watching them complete their process," she said.
Before coming to E.A. White, Probst practiced the same methods at the Fort Campbell schools in Kentucky. In the future, she would like to collaborate with other Fort Benning schools as well.
"The students have complete creative control over the interior of their books as well as the cover. I can't wait to see the finished products," said Probst.
As students exercise creative control over their projects, they are practicing self-monitoring, something that Mallory wants to encourage.
"We want the children to monitor their own progress, create and critique. Our teachers have begun to implement rubrics for their students to use. They've been using Regie Routman's Writing for Audience and Purpose as a tool," she said.
Her hope is that students will be able to determine whether or not their work is proficient or needs improvement on their own.
Once the students have completed their projects, they will be given a hard copy to take home at the end of the year. Mallory and Probst were in agreement about the takeaway for students. If someone asks, the students will now be able to say that they are published, they said.
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