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Interview with Lynn Hughes
1. When and how did you first publish your students?
I first published my students outside the classroom and school about 25 years ago. I found a publication in the local library that gave me listings of places that would accept student writing pieces. I continue to mail student work to places such as Highlights, Stone Soup, and Creative Kids. It is hard to get published in these publications, but not impossible. I have had five young authors published over the years. The nice part is that the students do get a reply letter (rejection letter) which is very child friendly and always encourages the student to keep on writing.
One resource that might help with publication is The Young Writer's Guide to Getting Published whichcan be found at a library.
2. I know that many of your students publish pieces in your local newspaper. Are there other ways in which they publish? (If so, what have been the most successful?)
There are many "outside of school" publishing opportunities.
The "Kids' Page" of the local newspaper really helps because they prefer short responses with voice, fluency, word choice... just what we work on. They offer a list of seven topics weekly to respond to or students may write their own. By the end of the year, every student (of a class of 24) gets published once and some up to fifteen times. This is the most successful! Look in the newspaper and on web sites for writing contests sponsored by various local agencies and government departments. I will have two to four students get published this way.
There are also poetry and short story anthology publications which publish a hard cover book once a year with writing pieces from students from around the United States. I will have on an average five published yearly.
We have a tri -county reading council which sponsors a writing contest yearly. I usually have two students win something. The students are invited to read their writing piece at the awards ceremony.
My authors' club after school activity concludes with an anthology of all the stories. We send a copy to our Board of Education, place a copy in the school library, and donate one to our town library.
Some of my in-school ways of publishing include recording students reading their writing on my laptop, compiling an anthology for our classroom, and reading pieces to our first grade reading buddies, to our high school mentors, and to our school service dog.
3. What are the benefits of publishing student work? The drawbacks?
Drawbacks? Not for the kids. For the teacher.... just that it takes a great deal of conscious effort to keep looking for publication opportunities and matching student work to publication possibilities. You have to stay aware of who still needs to be published.
There are so many benefits for the students! It is challenging, but worth every bit of hard work when they get published. We write to communicate and publishing makes writing a real life experience.
4. Tell us about your author folders. Do all students get "clips" to adhere to their folders?
All students have the newspaper clips, but there are many other things taped to their Writing Portfolio. They have photos of every time they share a writing piece with the class and photos of them and their high school writing buddies. ( I started a writing mentoring program with the local high school where different seniors come down 5 or 6 times a year and conference writing pieces.)
When students send something out in hopes of being published, they have a certificate with the name of the piece and the place sent. The reply letter received is also in their folder. If they get published in a book or as part of a contest, then the notification letter or acknowledgement in the paper, or a photo of them with the actual book goes in or on their folder.
They also have letters received from authors (like from when you visited) or replies to a letter they wrote to an author during our author study.
All students have a comment sheet at the back of their folders where they have recorded positive comments from their peers after sharing a writing piece. And of course, they have all their writing pieces inside.
5. Do you have any advice for teachers who are eager to publish their students' work?
I make it a writing goal of mine to have every child published at least once during the year. I consistently look for opportunities to publish student work. If the local paper does not have a "Kids" Page", I suggest contacting them with the idea. I try to match the writing piece topic to what I think a certain publication is looking for. Don't send the whole class at one time for one writing project. It doesn't get any more published faster and it doesn't make it "special". Let the individual pieces evolve over the year. They will. Only send in work worthy of publication. Through the writing conferences, the students (and you) know when a piece is ready/ worthy for publication. Nothing motivates students more to keep on revising a piece than knowing they can share it , that others will listen / read it, and maybe even get published outside of school.
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