Survey, Lesson Plan, and Writing Competition Submission Form

A community service program of Book Workshop, Inc.

Did you know 160,000 students a day miss school due to bullying? That is nearly 30 million absences a year in our nation’s schools.

Book Workshop is concerned with educational outcomes in the area we serve. And Bullying has a very large effect on educational outcomes.

Last year Book Workshop's founder received the proverbial wake up call. She had jury duty on a gang shooting trial. The teens involved participated in a rolling car-to-car gun battle down residential streets.

We started asking questions about the causes of youth violence. Stories of cyber bullying that lead to a teen suicide, teenage girls severely beating a Florida classmate in a misguided attempt for MySpace fame, and other headline grabbing stories kept our attention this year. It is unknown whether or not there is a dangerous trend developing—or whether the media has latched onto a topic where so little is actually known that it is easy to sensationalize the headlines.

It is important to start a dialog with educators, parents, community leaders, and our children to help alleviate the psychological and social burden of bully behavior. Can we work together to accomplish this goal?

Here is what Book Workshop will do to start the process. First, we’ve designed an anonymous survey that can be taken online. While it is not a scientific study of bullying, with enough participation it can be a statistically significant representation of what students experience. The survey can be taken by anyone, but we will be reviewing the findings for grades 3-6 first, and then reviewing other population segments over the course of the 2008-2009 academic year. Teachers and parents can take the survey as well. We will be collecting data from May 1-31, 2008. We will make the survey results available to participating schools in Fall of 2008.

Next, we have developed a lesson plan for students to write about and share their bullying experiences. This is an opportunity to create a mechanism for students to share their experiences. Children who have been victims of bullies will have an opportunity to learn that they are not alone. Bullies will have an opportunity to hear how their actions affect those around them, and to discuss the conditions that lead to their behavior choices. Perhaps starting a peer-to-peer discussion will help teach our children why bullying is so hurtful that both victims and bullies pay an emotional toll their whole life.

Book Workshop would like to share the best written examples of these stories with the community-at-large. Teachers have an opportunity to forward exceptional stories for inclusion in a newspaper style publication to share with their students next year. Students can take the newspaper home to share with their parents, siblings and others who can help monitor and support behavioral changes to end bullying and the long-term effects.

Finally, we will establish free online tools for parents, students and teachers on the latest news on this issue. We will include bulletin boards and other communication tools to continue the online dialogs.

This is our way of giving back to the community. We hope that our time, talent, and treasure will be a long term investment in our youth. I am anxious to hear how you feel about this project, and I hope you will partner with us to help reduce the toll of bullying. Please contact us with any questions you may have. We can be reached at 714-525-0882, or e-mail Teresa@MyBookWorkshop.com.

Classroom Publishing

Schools are increasingly challenged to find ways to fund their activities. Book Workshop has developed a way for schools to raise funds and support curriculum at the same time! The typical classroom-produced anthology (150 pages, color laminated cover, paperback bound) would cost approximately $6.50. Classrooms could sell the finished books at cost or at significant markups, retailing at $15 to $20 per book.

The Read, Write & Fun Process

Today’s technology makes it easy to print very short runs of professionally finished books. Book Workshop, Inc. is a pioneer in the print-on-demand publishing process. We have been printing short-run books for corporate trainers, college professors, and authors since 2000. We use state-of-the-art digital printing equipment to produce books in very short-run quantities. The minimum order is 25 books—the perfect quantity for a classroom project.

The Read, Write & Fun program can provide MSWord-based templates, hard copy templates, and written instructions for designing unique pages in InDesign, Pagemaker, Quark, and other professional desktop publishing programs are available. Each classroom participating in the program can custom design their own anthology. Typeface, page layout and cover designs to meet the needs of each classroom are available to classrooms who register to use our services.

Book Workshop, Inc. can also provide a marketing plan template for classrooms and schools who want to use their books for fundraising purposes. Parents, grandparents, extended family, community groups, and businesses are all potential customers for sponsorships, grants, and book sales.