Lithonia students become published authors

Students in the gifted reading program at Lithonia Middle School are achieving what some adults aspire to be—published authors. 

Under the guidance of Lithonia Middle School liaison and teacher Yolanda Lance, more than 15 students in her Reading Connection class have written and published their own books through Amazon’s self-publishing platform. 

Lance, who is also an author, created the project to challenge her students with something creative and independent. Instead of the traditional assignments, students were tasked with writing books that teach reading strategies to other middle school students. 

“Each student had to use 12 reading strategies in their books,” Lance explained. “Some chose to write informational books, while others created stories. But in each book, they still had to teach those strategies so readers could improve their reading skills.” 

One student athlete wrote a story titled Unlocking the Page: Mastering Reading Strategies, which blended school life and sports with lessons about reading. Another wrote a book titled Learning Text Structures Through Football, incorporating football plays into his book, comparing visualizing a play on the field to visualizing scenes while reading. Two of Lance’s bilingual students published both English and Spanish versions of their books. 

As well as teaching them to write their own stories, Lance also taught them how to design their book covers using Canva, edit another’s work, and upload their manuscripts through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platforms. Because the students are minors, parents also helped with process, finalizing the accounts, and tax information before the books were officially published. 

The success of the project has already led some students to continue writing. A few have already published coloring books as a second project and are now working on their third titles. 

“I had no idea what the outcome would be when we started,” Lance stated. “But they really owned it and this is something that will forever be in history, becoming a published author.”