Author Visits School

Maria McCool, author of the children's book, "Becoming George's Brother," and communications director for the , spoke with students participating in the "Authors of the Academy" grant that involves students in grades sixth through eighth.

McCool provided suggestions for writing children's books as well as answering many questions that the students had about publishing.

The grant of $1,350 was obtained by teachers Dolly Heineman and Debbie Kritikos from The Consortium for Public Education Great Idea Grant Program.

The “Authors of the Academy” project will allow students to hone their writing skills by creating and publishing their own individual children's book.

The published works will be distributed to primary classrooms for students to read which gives them the opportunity to enjoy the work of student-authors that they know.

The experience of creating and seeing their own books as published works should provide a great incentive for the “Academy Authors” to continue to refine their writing and reading skills.

The published books will be available for purchase by family and friends.