March is the perfect time to encourage student writing in any subject area! It’s officially Be An Author Month, and the team at Book Creator has oodles of resources for you to explore. Students can write about many different topics, and this fantastic ebook creation tool is an excellent choice for your next student project.
What is, Be An Author Month? Be An Author Month was launched last year and has now become an annual event to encourage and celebrate student writing in all parts of the school day. March is a popular time to try out new strategies and activities to promote literacy. During the month of March, you might already celebrate Read Across America Day, World Storytelling Day, or World Poetry Day – and now Be An Author Month is here to help give you inspiration for more student writing.
In today’s blog post, we’ll take a look at all of the resources Book Creator has pulled together for Be An Author Month, along with four tips to boost student writing this year!
Be An Author Month from Book Creator
The team at Book Creator started Be An Author Month in 2022, and the celebrations for this year are just getting started! This new blog post gives you some insight into the story behind this March celebration and lots of resources to help you dive into Book Creator. They’ve created a Reading Pack and Writing Pack and will host a competition for student writers as part of Be An Author Month, too!
You can press play above to watch the kick-off webinar or one of the following webinars:
- New Resources That Support Teachers During Be An Author Month
- Using Book Creator for Writer’s Workshop
- What Effect Will ChatGPT Have on Writing in Schools? [March 22nd]
Book Creator is one of my favorite open-ended creation tools, and I’ve featured it in workshops, presentations, and even in my books. If you haven’t tried it out, this month is the perfect time to dive into everything that is possible for student writers. For example, you might have students start an interactive journal, create a book of favorite things, or use Book Creator in place of a traditional student project.
And if you’ve used Book Creator in the past, this is a great time to revisit this popular creation tool or try out some of the newer features, like giving feedback right on the page as students work on their writing. There is also an App Store inside of Book Creator to combine everything you love about this tool with other favorites like Canva and Google Maps.
4 Tips to Boost Student Writing
Be An Author Month is the perfect time to boost student writing engagement in any subject area. Here are four activity ideas you can customize for your group of students.
Use Comics for Storytelling
I love using comics as inspiration for student writers in any subject area. Earlier this year, I shared a few science project ideas on the blog, but in the social studies classroom, comics are the perfect way to get students excited about writing. In this free resource I made for the Book Creator team, you can find many examples for social studies, including an activity on retelling a moment in history using comics.
Set Achievable Writing Goals
To boost student writing this month, your student authors can set a goal for what they’d like to write. This might include journaling twice a week or finishing a storybook by the end of the month. You and your students can talk together about what you’d like to accomplish. Then you can set a goal that they can reach by the end of March.
Collaborate on a Shared Book
We sometimes consider being an author a solo endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be! Instead, encourage your student authors to work on a book together. Book Creator has a fantastic collaborative option. Similar to Google Docs, students can work on books together. It’s essentially the same way they might have experienced sharing a document. This activity is excellent for partners or small groups of students ready to work together.
Publish with a Purpose
Book Creator makes it easy for you and your student writers to share their work with the world. You have publishing options available that give you a handful of choices. This includes publishing for the whole world to see, saving a student’s book as an ePub file, and even publishing a class library. You might decide to publish stories to share with families. Or you might decide to publish a book full of recommendations from your students to share with another class. By choosing an audience for student writers, they can publish with a purpose!
Ready to get started celebrating Be An Author Month? Book Creator has you covered! This link will take you to their landing page full of Be An Author Month resources. This includes a webinar later this week and a webinar about Using Book Creator for Writer’s Workshop next week. Also, make sure to tag the Book Creator team on Instagram and Twitter with your creations. I can’t wait to see what you and your students create this month!
