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Nine writers get novels written on NEOs published
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Nine authors from Corliss High School in Chicago got their books written during NaNoWriMo published.
(from left to right) Back row: Corliss High School teacher Kelli Rushek; Stacy Ratner, Erin Walter, both
of Open Books; Tonedalle Edwards, Corliss High School student.
Front Row: Chynicca Perry, Bianca Nelson, Corliss High School students. |
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When we last heard from Kelli Rushek, writing workshop teacher at George Henry Corliss High School in Chicago, she and her students were frantically editing away during their book-publishing process ( to see the article from the ). Now that their National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project is complete, Rushek shared how this writing experience using NEOs affected her students.
It all started in the fall of 2007: Rushek received an email from the director of NaNoWriMo regarding an opportunity to use a cart of 30 NEOs during the month of November. “I had wanted to be a part of NaNoWriMo with my students the year before, but we couldn’t participate due to lack of technology.” After winning the use of 30 NEOs for the month, Rushek’s class attempted to write a 50,000-word novel in one month—and to her surprise, many of her students achieved their goals.
After NaNoWriMo was over, Rushek collaborated with Open Books, a non-profit bookstore, literacy community center, volunteer corps, and independent publisher in Chicago, to get some of her students’ works published. Nine became published authors from the NaNoWriMo experience.
“The editors from Open Books came once a week from February to May,” Rushek said. “We then had to edit all of our work, keep writing (some of us), get back to our editors, make television appearances, and keep chugging along, no matter what our schedules were!”
After the students’ stories were downloaded from their NEOs, most of the communication with Open Books was through email and Word Comments. “This was good for the kids to see real-world technological applications.”
With the final manuscript deadline in May, Rushek was busy with the finishing touches before publication. “I did the last round of edits, and then Stacy Ratner at Open Books did all of the layouts, formatting, and the final crisping edit.”
Open Books’ corps of volunteer illustrators designed covers for each of the students’ books. “Many of the students were excited to see their covers for the first time when the Website launched.”
Looking back on the whirlwind experience of the novel writing process, Rushek will definitely participate in NaNoWriMo again after the positive effects she saw in her students. “They feel like writers! And that is the greatest gift any teacher could give her writing students,” she said. “When I decided that I was a writer, the world was opened up to me, and now these students, along with all of my students who participated in NaNoWriMo, feel like true writers. This sort of confidence will bridge any essay type or writing-to-learn assignment.”
Rushek is proud of how her students look at published text in a whole new light, now that they are published authors. “They are examining the classics—or any text that they come across—as writers, and they are reflecting on their own craft through reading more,” she said. “I had one student that became excellent with characterization and her character’s body movements after reading someone else’s work, and realizing that ‘she didn’t have much of that’ in her novel. Her creative written work—after her novel—was three or four grade levels higher than before, in my opinion.”
Most of the nine novelists are also talking about writing their second novels. “Besides these nine students, tons of other students wanted to write a book after they saw something of this magnitude was possible,” Rushek said.
Rushek has since moved to TEAM Englewood, a new performance school on the South Side of Chicago, but she hopes that NaNoWriMo will continue at Corliss. “I had a lot of sophomores come up to me at the end of last year and tell me they knew what they were going to write their novel about, or that they were excited to write their own book, which was really sad since I’m not going to be there to watch their goals come to fruition.”
Though she is not teaching a writing course this year, Rushek hopes to continue the NaNoWriMo tradition with an after-school club during the month of November. Rushek herself experienced the ups-and-downs of the writing and editing process while “in the trenches” with her students during NaNoWriMo, and happily reports that she, too, is now a published author.
“I personally love the NaNoWriMo experience,” she said. “I wish that more teachers would be able to drop test prep for a little while to engage their students in such a monumental and justified experience with writing.”
To learn more about the nine Corliss High School published authors and their books, visit these additional resources:
- The Corliss High School Published Authors:
- Corliss authors interviewed on TV:
- (see page 8)
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