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A Provo elementary school teacher is hoping to encourage more writing by helping students publish books.
Chris Wilcox says for a long time he's wanted to publish his students' stories as a way to motivate them to focus on writing, but it was too expensive. So he decided to build his own publishing Web site. Students can get books printed for under $10.
Wilcox tried it out with one of his fifth graders.
"She was so excited when we gave her the book. She hugged the book to her and said, 'I never thought it would be a real book someday,'" he said.
He says it's made a big difference in the way his fifth-grade students write.
More than 250 schools in Utah and surrounding states now use the site www.mightyauthors.com, and Wilcox says they've been busy making thousands of books. The Web site lets the students insert drawings or pictures and design how the book will be put together.
The Web site includes a free printout option. Soft cover books can be published for about $8; hard cover books cost up to $15 or $20.
Some schools now even have a section in their library with books their own students wrote. Also, some people have printed childrens' books in Spanish and sent them to children in Latin America as a service project.
E-mail: rjeppesen@ksl.com
