Second-graders at Riverbend Elementary School were able to see all of their hard work come together April 15 when they were presented with Look Who Changed the World, Lucile!: Tiger Tales from Riverbend Elementary, a perfect-bound, hardcover book filled with their illustrations and short stories.
Brenau University education majors have been working with local elementary schools for many years. This is the second time Lisa McCoy, assistant professor in the College of Education, and her class have worked with elementary school students on this publication.
“I think it’s a fabulous writing project,” McCoy said. “Our hope is that these students will keep writing and be excited about writing.”
McCoy and her early childhood education major students worked through the spring semester with Misty Clark’s second-grade class.
“I think the biggest benefit for the second-graders was to see that what they do is important and that people do notice,” Clark said. “Even as a child they can publish books. They can be whatever they set their minds to.”
Clark said she picked the theme for this year’s book and students wrote stories that included influential people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, George Washington and Jane Addams. The book features Lucile, Brenau’s mascot. Jazmin Decker, Brenau senior and fashion merchandising major from Gainesville, Georgia, helped design the cover of this year’s book.
Cassidy Buck, special education major from Roswell, Georgia, said the second-graders wrote the stories while the Brenau students helped with the revision process.
“We all have our field experiences where we’re out working at a school,” Buck said. “This gives us an opportunity to really work one-on-one with students and help them make something they, a lot of times, wouldn’t have the opportunity to do.”
