Invitation for schools to collaborate on a students' short story anthology

[imperiex]

Hello all,

I'm an English teacher at a school in Malaysia. Our students are 13 to 17 years old and we follow a combination of Cambridge and national Malaysian syllabus. English is our second language.

Since 2013, we have self-published books of our students' stories as part of our English Language Enrichment Program. Through this project, we give our students an opportunity to write for a real audience instead of exams, and we stress the importance of revising and editing over trying to be hyper-correct.

We sell the books to our own students, teachers and parents (we never aim to make profit so we don't apply for ISBN) and we also present them as gifts to public figures like government ministers, academics and local authors in exchange for letters of recommendation for our students.

For 2016, we want to take our game to an international level by collaborating with a foreign school to produce a book. This book would consist of short stories written by students from both schools. So we are looking for a school that would like to work with us on this project.

Though we do exercise strict quality control, we do not expect stories written by professional authors; we simply want to give students a chance to see their works in print and make it accessible to audience outside the classroom.

We will bear all the cost and work on typesetting, design and printing; the only thing your school needs to do is get your students to write a story, edit it and email it to us. There will be no other costs or work incurred on your school whatsoever.

We welcome any school from around the world (except Malaysia) to work with us. You don't even have to be a Cambridge school; you can be rural, urban, public, private, low income, high income, single sex, co-ed, secular, religious, technical, correctional, boarding school etc. All we ask is that:
(1) your students are 13-18 years old
(2) they speak English or learn it as a subject
(3) your school has an internet connection, since all communication between our schools will be through email

After the book has been printed, we will mail you 50 copies for free (postage is on us). You can use the books any way you want: sell them, put them in the library, give them away etc.

If you are a teacher (or someone who can get me in touch with a teacher) and you're interested to work with us, please send me a private message so we can iron out the details e.g. project timeline, number of stories, the general theme etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is an educational project. We are not scammers and we are not out to make a profit. Our school does not (and will never) sell the books to the public. We will only sell the books to our own students, teachers and parents to recoup the printing costs. All copyright remains with the student authors.

IMPORTANT NOTE 2: If your school is interested to work with us on this project but cannot commit to sending many stories, you are still welcome (the more schools featured in the book, the merrier!); however we will not be able to send you 50 copies of the book for free. We will only send X copies of the book to you, X being the number of stories you sent to us.

 

[Skrej]

This sounds like a really interesting project. Unfortunately, I only work with adult learners, otherwise I'd interested having some of my students participate.

Do you have any online samples or excerpts teachers who are interested could view, to get a feel for the level of English required, or how sophisticated the writing should be?

Also, some additional information regarding expectations for proofing, editing, etc., would be useful to those interested.

 

[imperiex]

Hi skrej,

We don't have any online examples but I can share with you some pictures of our previous book releases.

2014 (prose): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4QpFE8p9IH2YWcwTUtUQy1scWc
2014 (poetry): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4QpFE8p9IH2NUxpTV83S1l2eVE
2015 (a collabo with a Malaysian school): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4QpFE8p9IH2TW5XVXhteTRMckU

And this is an example of an unedited first draft from one of our average-proficiency students. We try to mimic the process of real publishing by insisting that students send their first draft to be proofread by the teacher. This process is repeated twice, so the stories that get printed are actually the third draft. Of course this only applies to students from our school (since we're the ones forking out the money), you might have a different kind of quality control measures with your own students depending on their level of proficiency.

“Are you crazy?” Miyra said suspiciously.
“No. I have think about this. My parents also know.”

Nothings come from Iyra. She had quiet but her face have all the answers.
It really shocked Miyra and Iyra. They never think that Biyla will make this decision.

“When?” suddenly Iyra asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”Biyla said.

“Alright. I will follow you, Biyla.” Suddenly Miyra make a decision.
“But it can risks us, can’t it? Anything can happen during this journey. Are you sure, Miyra?” Iyra ask for the certainty.
“Don’t worry. We will save. We not even try it yet. We should give support to our friend. I’m sure that you also will do the same thing if you in this situation.” Iyra said fervently.

At this time, Biyla just sit. Hoping that both of her friends agree with her decision. She really want to solve this matter even both of her friends don’t want to go with her.

Hope that helps.