THE WRITE STUFF
A motivated elementary school teacher has helped her students draft and publish dozens of stories about their class pets.
For years, Minnesota teacher Laura Adamczyk Schaper has been working with her first and second graders to write and publish their own class books. The first book was called Stuart’s Great Adventure, and Laura got the idea when she heard about a company that helped teachers publish books with their students.
“I thought that would be fun,” she says, “but I didn’t have a topic in mind until the class hamster, Stuart, escaped from his cage.” The whole class spent the day looking for Stuart, without any luck.
Fortunately, when Laura returned the following morning, she found that Stuart had climbed back into his cage on his own. “That set the idea to use Stuart as the topic,” Laura says. “The students came back with ideas as to what Stuart had done while on his big adventure.”
After a lot of brainstorming, writing, editing and proofreading, the children finished their stories and were ready to share their work. Laura invited their parents and friends to visit the classroom for an evening of stories.
“The students all sat around in a half circle, and even Stuart was part of the excitement,” she says. “I asked each student to say what their favorite part of the project was and then to read their own story about Stuart’s adventure.”
One student wrote about Stuart visiting a castle, where he rescued two princesses. Others shared stories about Stuart spending his day at exciting locations like race tracks, rock-climbing walls and even Great Wolf Lodge.
The project was such a resounding success that Laura decided to repeat it the following year, with Super Stuart to the Rescue. In that book, Stuart doesn’t just go on adventures. He’s a bona fide superhero who repeatedly saves the world from dastardly villains.
“Stuart does more with his time than just munch seeds and run on his wheel,” Laura says. “He spends his weekends battling evildoers, fighting crime, and protecting the people and creatures of Nodine, Minnesota.”
In the stories, Stuart often has powers, such as X-ray vision, super strength or super speed, which he uses to save people in danger. In one memorable story, he manages to rescue everyone in Chicago from an out-of-control fire.
Laura has since helped her students make books about other class hamsters, named Butterscotch and Perry. She’s been thrilled to see how positively her students have continued to respond to the project year after year.