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NewsNovember 8, 1996

Laura Green's fifth grade class learned a lesson in written and oral communication when they hosted a "meet the authors" reading at Clippard Elementary School Thursday. The 22 students completed a two-week language arts project Thursday that required them to write, illustrate and bind a storybook for first-graders. They then visited Diane LeGrand's first grade class, read the books and told the class about themselves...

Laura Green's fifth grade class learned a lesson in written and oral communication when they hosted a "meet the authors" reading at Clippard Elementary School Thursday.

The 22 students completed a two-week language arts project Thursday that required them to write, illustrate and bind a storybook for first-graders. They then visited Diane LeGrand's first grade class, read the books and told the class about themselves.

"One of the main objectives is for them to have practice writing for other audiences," said Green. "They have plenty of practice writing for fifth-graders, so this time we had them to write for first-graders. It helps to develop their language arts and creative writing abilities."

Each book was six pages long, and the students could choose to make their books either 12 or 16 sentences long. The authors were given a list of words the first-graders were learning, and they then chose topics and wrote stories using the words on the list.

"We made the covers using cardboard from cereal boxes and wallpaper," said Natosha Storey-Ford, one of the authors. "Then we had to write using our very best handwriting."

Storey-Ford said she enjoyed the entire experience, and Danielle Auer agreed. "I enjoyed it, because I like to read and I like to read to younger people," she said. Auer said she often reads books to her younger sister.

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Other students found some parts of the project more difficult than others.

"Some parts were hard," said T.J. Bishop, "but the writing wasn't really that hard for me. Probably illustrating the same picture on every page was the hardest because I couldn't draw the same dog each time."

Phillip Brooks said the actual presentation was more difficult for him than other parts of the project. "It was all right, but I was nervous because I had stage fright," he said.

Kopper Thatch said she also had stage fright. "I was nervous," she said. "I don't like reading in front of people."

But the first-graders didn't seem to notice any nervousness in the authors. They came alive whenever a subject, a name, or in some cases, a sibling, interested them, and they clapped appreciatively after each author's presentation.

The authors will leave their books in LeGrand's classroom library, and the first-graders will be allowed to check them out and take them home. In the spring, Green's class will again write books for the class, but the word lists will differ to show how the first-graders' vocabularies have grown.

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