Thanks for the School Memories: Celebrating Young Writers
“Wow! Chesnee Middle School recently received money via the postal service. ‘The check is in the mail’ is common fodder for comedy routines, but it really happens with Creative Communication on the sending end of the postal trip! Just what does $250 have to do with celebrating writing around here? Let me see…
Lots of us who now teach were once willing student writers burdened, in a way, with no audience beyond one teacher in one room in one school. Our work ended up on the classroom bulletin board, or maybe we were obliged to read it aloud (our faces glowing with boiling-red embarrassment), but seldom were we honored to find our efforts printed in a real book. Fortunately for myriad students of more recent years, Creative Communication has provided a real reason to explore their voices: legitimate hopes for publication of their original poetry.
But what about the chance for even more students to share thoughts closer to home…? This fantastic company has enabled continued intra-school publication for us! Because slashed education budgets have eliminated many enrichment programs, publishing a school-wide magazine requires funds that, without help, many schools can ill afford in today’s economy. Creative Communication’s $250 gift ensured that our own school-wide literary and art magazine, Eagle Vision, could still fly in 2003. Without the grant, current young writers’ and artists’ efforts might have had to go unheralded here at home. Because of it, though, our school’s present generation of future-renowned poets, authors, and artists may have become smitten forever because their talents adorned Eagle Vision pages this year. What a potential gift to the world!
All teachers in our school receive invitations to submit students’ poetry, short stories, essays, extended-response test answers, and artwork for consideration. Stringent guidelines for submissions limit the amount of time the compiler/publisher must spend editing other teachers’ students’ entries. How our individual educators motivate their own students varies, although some teachers include past issues of Eagle Vision among their literature choices to inspire, demonstrate, and encourage quality composition and/or visual art.
Our goal each year is to produce enough magazines to guarantee all students and faculty/staff one copy of Eagle Vision at no cost. Complimentary copies also land on tables in the District Office and in lobbies and waiting rooms around town. To stretch our $250 grant as far as possible, and in an effort to make the magazine self-sufficient within that budget, we collaborated with the printing class at our district’s vocational center. There, the cost involved only the materials needed for production of the magazine, with the printing class learners’ free labor chalked up to experience. The quality is somewhat less clear than professional-grade, but the production served dual advantages: contributing to the education of our students learning a technical trade and honoring our young writers and artists.
Just one look at students’ faces as each one received that free copy of Eagle Vision would convince any educator whose school does not already publish its own literary magazine to find a way to provide such an outlet for creative thought. Thanks, Creative Communication, for enabling smiling eyes to peer over their student-designed magazine covers as they pored over their copies of Eagle Vision this year!”
Diana Wright (Teacher, Grade 8)
Eagle Vision Compiler/Publisher
Chesnee Middle School
Chesnee, SC
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