There is a singular
exhilaration in seeing your name and your words in print. It’s thrilling and
motivating. It’s terrifying and liberating. It’s something every student should
experience many times.

My small 2009 senior
class—only 20 students— published a paperback literary anthology as the
culminating project of 12th grade English and the experience, while messy, was the most empowering of the school year. Our book of raw poetry and
impassioned prose, Truth Be Told: Diamonds in the Rough, has become a hit in
the school community and fired up future classes to outdo the Class of ‘09.

I was introduced to the
importance of “going public” with student work in a “Teaching of Writing” class
led by Erick Gordon at Teachers College, Columbia University. Erick is the
founder and director of the Student Press Initiative, an organization dedicated
to partnering with classes to publish books of student work. The SPI website
explains:

“SPI is built upon the
premise that writing for publication provides young people with authentic
audiences. When students realize the power and potential of an audience of
their peers and the community at large, writing becomes purposeful thereby
inspiring them to produce their best work. We believe that when a young writer
finds an audience, she will find her voice.”

Amen. Students need more
than just their teacher to be their audience in order to unlock their finest
potential. In my grad school class with Erick, the teachers-in-training
composed our own book of New Yorker-style profiles of educators. It was a brilliant assignment; I knew
that both my peers and my profile subject would be carefully reading every word
I wrote, so it had to be good. The accountability was built-in and the project
was fun. Our final product was The Questions Themselves: Profiles of
Educators, a cool-looking paperback with a cover designed by a class member. It sits on
a shelf right next to my desk.

Organizations like SPI are
popping up, tapping into this often dammed-up wealth of student capability. In
San Francisco, 826 Valencia was so successful it expanded to become 826
National, with sites in several
cities across the country. In Washington, D.C., Capitol Letters connected celebrated
novelists Edward P. Jones and George Pelecanos with students at Cardozo High
School to publish the student anthology The Way We See It: Complete Coverage
of the Nation's Capital From the Inside Out.

But here’s the magic part:
you don’t need to partner with a team of experts at a nonprofit to publish a
book. The secret weapon is available to all, and it's lulu.com. This website is
a miracle. Intended for self-publishing authors, lulu.com is a one-stop shop
for assembling, printing, and selling professional-looking books. (I promise
I’m not on their payroll.) Two weeks after my students handed in their final
drafts to me, we were holding gorgeous, shiny paperbacks in our hands. (Who knew a back-cover barcode could stir such excitement?) Next
year, I’ll be better equipped to scaffold the publishing unit and hopefully the
improvements will be seen in our tangible product. (A bonus: my
administrators loved it.)

It’s hard to find ways to
share stuff; publishing a book often isn’t practical. I’m guilty of letting my
assignment inbox become a vacuum where my students hand in writing they may
have worked extra-hard on and I end up being the only one to read it. But after
the success of Truth Be Told: Diamonds in the Rough, I’m going to seek ways for every unit to have
some sort of community tie-in, whether it’s on a class-to-class level,
school-wide, or outside the campus. Kids perform at a higher level when their products are
seen. Adults do too.

This spirit of “going
public” is in direct conflict with the culture of test prep, in which students
are expected to work their hardest on assessments that they will never again
see, and graded by people they will never meet. Yet this is a front where
teachers have to lead.

What are some of your
greatest successes—or blunders—in going public?