Create Your Own Classroom Tradition: Publishing a Book a Year

Classbook projects make writing fun and help your students reach their full potential through the power of publishing. They’re ideal as an annual tradition because of how simple they are to set up and how easily you can introduce new concepts and explore new horizons each year while still keeping to the same basic structure. So how do you do it?

Step 1: Order a (free!) publishing kit.

For the best results—and the least amount of stress—work with an established and reputable student publishing company to create and publish your book. Studentreasures offers free publishing kits that come with easy-to-follow instructions and template pages for final copies, and will even publish a classroom copy of your book at no cost.

Step 2: Choose an overarching theme or goal.

Setting a general theme or goal in mind ahead of time helps give your project direction, both this year and in the future. Your theme may be also an important factor to consider during the next step. Make this initial theme or goal as broad or narrow as you like, but be sure to leave room for your students’ input.

Step 3: Set a schedule.

Plan ahead for how much time you want your students to spend on each stage of the project, from brainstorming to drafting to editing and beyond. If your theme or goal is seasonal or time-sensitive, you should plan to write or publish at a certain time of year. If, for instance, you plan to make your classbook and end-of-year project, be sure to schedule your publishing date well in advance of the last day of school. Be sure to give yourself and your students a bit of a buffer to keep deadline stress to a minimum. Remember, too, that you can always reschedule your publishing date if necessary.

Step 4: Get pumped up!

Before your students begin working on their classbook, get them excited for publishing by sharing a few examples with them—either of previous years’ classbooks from your classroom or some previously published classbooks available to view online. Showing them what they have to look forward to will help motivate them to write more effectively and more passionately.

Step 5: Create and publish your book.

This is the funnest part! Create your classbook using the materials in the kit you ordered—or using an online bookmaker. Have your students write a few practice drafts before transferring their final draft to the appropriate kit template pages. Ask them to draw illustrations to match their writing using colored markers and the blank illustration pages included in the kit. If your students need a little extra practice, free replacement kit materials are available for you to download and print at any time. (Pro tip: If you are using photographs or original artwork you’d like back, only send in copies. We don’t return materials used to create classbooks.)

Once your students have finished writing and illustrating their pages, send them in (along with all of the parent order forms). Before you know it, your books will be published and shipped right to your door. It’s that easy!

Step 6: Celebrate!

This is the other funnest part. Once your published books arrive, celebrate your students and their work with a fun get-together. If you’re running on a tight schedule or simply not a party person, this can be as simple as opening the box and enjoying your book together as a class. However, a publishing party can be a ton of fun—and it’s a whole lot easier to plan the ultimate party than you might think.

Step 7: Review and repeat.

This step is the key to keeping your new classroom tradition alive. Once all is said and done, take some time to review your experience. Talk to your students about their favorite and least favorite parts of the project. Consider what you enjoyed, and what areas still have room for improvement. This is your chance to get a head start on next year’s planning as early as you like, knowing it’ll go even better the next time around.