Third graders in Mrs. Lettus’ and Mrs. White’s class at Shaker Road Elementary shared their “expert” books with friends and families at the Expert Book Author Celebration. For this assignment, each student picked a topic that they were an “expert” in and created a nonfiction book about it. The students quickly got to the task and were excited to unveil the finished product.
The student’s first step was to gather their ideas together and organize them into categories. There was also a research period involved, students were asked to find information supporting their points and find new facts about their topic. Students wrote down notes of points they wanted to bring up in the book. After this was completed, the third graders took these ideas and structured them into sentences, and those sentences were then turned into paragraphs.
“Allowing the students to express themselves and decide their expert topic serves as a tool to get our students engaged,” said Mrs. White. “ With this project they were able to learn through a lens that they understood and already had interest in.”
The final results were books on topics about a variety of sports, animals, sleepovers, shopping and video games. By the time of the Expert Book Author Celebration, students were able to confidently reveal their projects to an audience of fellow students and their families.