The Graduation Party

Last weekend, I went to my hometown to visit my parents. My dad is a retired high school math teacher who still coaches tennis at the local high school. Saturday afternoon, we came inside the house after enjoying some sun by the pool and there was a message on the answering machine. It was from one of the graduating teenage boys on the tennis team. The message went somewhat like this, “I’m calling from my graduation party and I really hope you can make it. I told my mom to send you an invitation and I hope she found your address – if she didn’t I’m sorry, but I’m really hoping you can come. Mr. Nelson (the other coach) is here and a bunch of the guys from the team. We’d really love to see you.” And the message went on with an address, etc. My dad never received an invitation, but immediately took a shower and got into his car to attend the party. Personally, I was really impressed that an 18 year old boy would care enough to call his tennis coach to make sure he attended his graduation party. That’s the thing about teenagers, just when you think they don’t care, they throw you a curve ball. Even though it may be challenging, continue to be coaches and mentors – it really does make a difference.

New stuff online!

If you’re not on our catalog mailing list, you haven’t been able to take a peek at our latest books. Well, the wait is over—our Fall 2008 books are now available on our website. Take a look at all of our new products, including brand-new series (Graphic Spin, We Are Heroes) and fresh additions to old favorite series (Claudia Cristina Cortez, Jake Maddox, and Graphic Flash, among others!). While you’re there, you can also check out our vast repository of educators’ resources, including free Reader’s Theater scripts, book report forms, and create-your-own-graphic-novel pages. Check it all out at www.stonearchbooks.com!

How Books Get Their Names

We’ve finished up our books for Fall ‘08. Proofs (the last final look at the pages, so we can double-check for errors) are rolling in, and soon we’ll see the first finished copies of our books. But that doesn’t mean we have time to relax and slow down. We’re already moving on to our Spring ‘09 list!

Next week, the entire staff will meet to talk about titles for each book that we'll publish in Spring ‘09. First, the editors meet to talk about the book’s plot and brainstorm initial title ideas. Then we run it by the large group. At Stone Arch, it’s important to us to get feedback from multiple staff members before we decide on a title for a book. We know that titles matter when librarians are ordering books, so we try to get as much information about the book into the title as we can. We also want kids to find the titles appealing, so we try to use kid-friendly words. And finally, we want unique titles, so once we’ve come up with a list of titles for our books, we search for other books with those titles. If we find a match, we start over!

Here’s a fun exercise for your classroom or library: Read the class a new story—try reading one of our Graphic Sparks books, using tape to cover up the title as you’re reading. Then ask them to come up with a title for the story. They can create covers for their newly titled books, too. Try the same exercise with a story they already know (one of our Graphic Revolve books would be perfect for that exercise). The results might be surprising!

Bringing books to life!

Reader’s Theater continues to be a huge buzz. The session on the subject was packed at PLA, and as more and more teachers and librarians become familiar with this great way to improve kids’ fluency, it’s only getting more popular.

Educators know that the leveled play scripts from Stone Arch Books’ Reader’s Theater help build oral fluency for individual readers. The scripts also support confidence as kids learn public speaking. They promote listening skills, build student cooperation, and most importantly, add another way to make reading fun! Stone Arch has always made Reader’s Theater easy for educators by leveling our scripts so that assigning roles by reading level is simple.

Now we’re making it even easier by selling Reader’s Theater kits on our website. Each kit contains a teacher’s version of the script (complete with leveling information), enough scripts for each character in the play, six copies of the paperback book, and a handy storage bag. It’s never been so simple to help your students bring books to life!

For more information on Reader’s Theater, check out the Educator Resources tab on our website.

More teaching tools

We know it’s hard to gauge a student’s reaction and comprehension after reading a book. And book reports, while useful for you, can be boring and frustrating for the student. That’s why we created our handy book report form (opens PDF). It’s a simple handout, with areas for students to fill in the information they need to show that they understood a book. But with its fun design and clear areas for information, it doesn’t feel like an assignment.

Try it out in your classroom, library, or home, and let us know what you think! If the student agrees, send us a copy of any book report on one of our books—we love to hear what kids think, too.

For a great final project, you can combine the book report form and the blank graphic novel page we’ve created. Ask the student to read a graphic novel, write a book report on it, and then draw a graphic novel page of their own, using our create-your-own-graphic-novel page (opens PDF).

Comics in the classroom?

Not such a crazy idea anymore!

In an editorial today, the New York Times championed something that’s very near and dear to our hearts: Comic books in the classroom. Buoyed by a recent article about the Comic Book Project and the Maryland Comics in the Classroom initiative, the editorial posits that comic books (and by extension, graphic novels) have an important place in education. In fact, the editorial states, “The pairing of visual and written plotlines that [comic books] rely on appear to be especially helpful to struggling readers.” We’ve been saying this since our first graphic novels hit shelves in Spring 2006, so it’s nice of the Times to catch up! We’ve got a make-your-own-graphic-novel page (opens PDF) that students love, which is a great supplement to any of our graphic novels and a fabulous learning tool for the classroom.

There are sure to be many more articles like the two in the Times--here's to getting kids to read with the kinds of books they love.