‘It’s Alive’: McKitrick students now published authors

Earlier in the year, Hillacre came across Studentreasures Publishing, and the idea of writing a book intrigued her.

“They really try to engage teachers through social media, to take a look at the content and what other teachers are doing,” she said, noting it was a way to get people hooked on doing a project.

A page from the new book “It’s Alive” by a Grade 4 class. (Submitted Photo/Kat Hillacre)

“Everything I saw was extremely positive, like how engaging it was for not only the teacher in the classroom but for the students.”

After a bit more investigation, the teacher discovered it was free for educators and was sent the publishing kit.

“You basically sign up your classroom, you sign up yourself, you pick a publishing date and then you pick a type of book that you want to do,” she said.

Given her student’s interest in learning about habitats around the world and in the province, Hillacre picked a book on animals.

“They got really, really engaged with adaptations, so like structural adaptations, what do animals and living things have on their bodies and their behaviours to let them survive and thrive in their environment,” the teacher said.

Hence the animal European naturalists thought was a taxidermized creation upon first seeing it for the first time in in the 1790’s.

“We kind of just did a little investigation or research about a platypus,” she said.

“It’s Alive” by a Grade 4 class. (Submitted Photo/Kat Hillacre)

“About this animal that was literally Frankensteined together.”

Then a student asked the question: Could they make their own?

“They just researched all of these different animals and all of these different habitats,” she said.

Then they got to work on turning into mad cap scientists and created their own odd curiosities.

“Using research and pieces of where these animals are found, like real animals in real life and then that’s where we decided the book was going to come from.”

The writing process took about six months and in student interviews with their teacher, the overall feeling was one of pride when they held their book., titled: It’s Alive.

“It was very fun because we got to create our own predators and research different ones,” said Jaymes Moccasin.

“I got to make and create my very own that we don’t find in nature. It was tough to do because we have never done something like this. It was tricky because I had to learn about different animal adaptions and collect all my ideas to make it into one predator.”

For Hannah Hunt, it was something she had always wanted to do.

“I have always wanted to combine my art and writing into…something great like this. I was able to express my creativity, and this was the first time I felt free to write what I am interested in and not just the normal writing we do in school.”

“I also loved learning how to dress up my writing and express my thoughts on paper. I also was able to bring my writing to life by having the freedom to design my own predator.”

The book is set up as a predator compendium and features 27 pages with information on different creatures (one a shark with tentacles, another a lion body with a head and wings of a bird) of weird and wonderful colours and designs.

“I’m coming from a classroom of students that really even struggle to write a sentence, some of them even to write a word,” Hillacre said.

Now they get to see their duotangs full of research, early drafts of both illustrations and written work.

A page from the new book “It’s Alive” by a Grade 4 class. (Submitted Photo/Kat Hillacre)

“When they actually physically saw the book, that’s when it hit them. The biggest take away for them was the confidence that they can do hard things, and it was hard.”

To celebrate the completion of their project, the class held a publishing party recently to a standing room only crowd made up of parents, teachers, community members and division members. Students also got little certificates and awards saying, “published authors.”

“Usually when this project is done, the classroom teacher gets one free book as a classroom keepsake,” Hillacre said, noting that parents can order books on their own.

“Looking at our students and our families, sometimes that’s not feasible for them,” she added, noting they began looking at ways to fundraise.

In an added surprise, an anonymous donor, along with the Rotary Club of the Battlefords also contributed and every student was able to have their own copy.

“At the end of the day, this wasn’t my work, this wasn’t me, this was them so, I had to find a way to make sure that each and every single one of them at least had a copy for themselves,” Hillacre said.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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by Julia Lovett-Squires

‘It’s Alive’: McKitrick students now published authors

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