OVERVIEW OF WRITING AND PUBLISHING WORKSHOP

The Student Publishing Program (SPP) is a two-part creative writing program. The award-winning writing and publishing workshop is part one. It helps students of all backgrounds and learning levels gain the confidence and writing skills needed to publish to wider audiences. Based on experience from our 5-year pilot of SPP, we estimate that 95 percent of the 400+ students of a full class wouldn't allow their writing to be published and promoted locally and nationally without this workshop.

Upon completing the workshop, schools then submit their student compositions through the SPP online submissions site - a turnkey publishing suite with groundbreaking technology that enables teachers to easily and safely secure and track student permissions, receive and edit compositions from a broad range of word processing programs, computer platforms and Web browsers, and then have these compositions automatically formatted into an online literary magazine and publish-ready print-on-demand manuscript. Our 5-year pilot shows that without this technology, teachers do not have the expertise and time required to publish 400+ student submissions into an online magazine and book manuscript file at a PoD-publisher's specs. The submission site doesn't require technology expertise, but we also provide training and free, live-on-call support throughout the process of the program.

Participating schools receive an award-winning curriculum and downloadable professional development video produced with the nation's top educators and writers, easy-to-use instructions on the online submission process, and live contact information for assisting schools in all aspects of the program.

Workshop objectives include:

1. Help students recognize themselves as publish-worthy by introducing them to a fuller spectrum of what is considered good writing;

2. Help students overcome the fear of rejection from publishers, critics and peers;

3. Help students to recognize their unique voices and subject ideas in their own experiences, and then help them to turn those ideas into publish-worthy poetry and prose through strategies used by professional writers.

4. Provide students with take-home instructions for successfully submitting their work to publishers for consideration, negotiating rights and rates, and even publishing their own books—trade paperback books available in bookstores nationwide—through new print-on-demand technology;

5. Debunk the self-defeating myth that young people haven’t lived long enough to write something of consequence, and reinforce the fact that students can be successful communicators right now.