Publishing a Children’s Book with Freshman English Students

Posted: September 9, 2024

Lyn Froehlich is a Senior Lecturer in English.

Each summer, after a year of teaching composition and literature courses in UNG’s English department, I reflect on students’ learning experiences and my own teaching. My teaching goal is to deliver life-changing learning that engages students far beyond what they might encounter in the typical classroom. In 2023, with a new president establishing “big bets” to reach higher and improve student engagement, the time was now to redesign my curriculum. One of those “big bets” was storytelling and connecting our students to the growing film and media industry in Georgia ($4.1 Billion in 2023). At the same time, UNG’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Leadership (CTLL) was accepting applications for the 2024 HIPs Academy. Professor Haley Hodges and I shared the same passion for teaching. We applied and were accepted because we were both motivated to enrich our core English 1102 curriculum and engage NG students in dramatically new ways. 

Our university and the USG system embrace the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) High-Impact Practices (HIPs) to promulgate experiential learning, undergraduate research, internships, capstone courses/projects, and writing-intensive courses. HIPs are demonstrated to increases rates of student retention and success. However, we frequently apply these HIPs in the junior and senior years of higher education, when it is during the critical freshman year that HIPs are most needed.

Our goal was to design an English 1102 course where students could write a quality children’s book and get it published by the end of the semester. Surprisingly, only one student dropped the course out of seven sections. Along the way, the students experienced the following HIPs:

1. First-Year Experience: Students worked together on writing, creating a storyboard, and publishing a book. At the end of the semester, students presented their work in the community, developing their oral communication skills.
2. Service Learning: Students presented their published books at a local alumni-owned business, local bookstore, and community festival.
3. Undergraduate Research: Students interviewed experts and researched writers, writing styles, and content.
4. Writing-Intensive Course: Students wrote essays, completed research, and edited their books.
5. Common Intellectual Experience: Seven sections (150 students) collaborated regularly on their writing, titles, and illustrations.
6. Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Students interacted with each other and with local publishers, a professional storyboard designer, a storyteller, and published authors.
7. Learning Communities: Students coordinated with each other to create their stories, holding each other accountable and reaching out to others to learn the craft.
8. Global Learning: This introduction to crafting a story is open to and represents all cultures and ethnicities. Mentoring along the way is offered to all students as they are encouraged to develop an original story, autobiographical or fictional.

We hoped to apply two or perhaps three HIPs, but after attending the "HIPs in the States" conference at Indiana University, we were more informed about what other universities are implementing and became confident about applying a variety of HIPs in our courses. Our teaching experience improved because we implemented a plan that was focused yet flexible, incorporated a Student Advisory Board, and challenged students to think critically and attempt something they had never done before. Ultimately, our UNG students’ achieved the desired learning outcomes, which exceeded those of a traditional English 1102 course.  

Typically, English professors work independently and rarely collaborate with each other in designing curriculum or aligning their courses. Prof. Hodges and I worked synergistically and tirelessly throughout the process to create this curriculum, design completely new assignments that incorporate HIPs, and ultimately equip our students to collaborate and engage more deeply in a core class. There were some issues along the way. Because this is a new curriculum, we needed funding, expert presenters in each area, artists for illustrations, judges to help objectively determine finalists for the books to be published, and rooms on campus where we could meet for collaboration. We hit some brick walls, but eventually pushed through such that ten finalists were chosen by our judges and we published some impressive children’s books!

The CTLL Academy helped us focus, brainstorm, and create a curriculum that delivers a tangible outcome: a published children's book, in print by the end of the semester. Students are now equipped with new experiences, skills, and knowledge. At the end of the semester, our student finalists shared their published books with the community at the popular Bear on the Square Festival. Some students presented their books at a local bookstore, others shared at an elementary school, and others at a local toy store. There will be additional opportunities for students to continue to share with the community and fellow students. The feedback has been phenomenal. As one student wrote, “It was incredible to see my story in print and flip through the pages. It truly is a dream come true for me…I feel so blessed for this whole experience and to have such a professional product at the end of it.”