DIY Real Wood Bookcase for Under $150 in 5 Steps

It has been almost a year since we moved from our small house in town to our only slightly bigger house in the country. The old house was already overflowing with books despite the great 4' wide by 8' tall built-in bookcase my parents built for us when we moved in. Obviously, that bookcase couldn't come with us. Four new bookcases later (plus the few small ones we had and could take with us), all of our 1422 books (as of June 8, 2016) are FINALLY unpacked. 

When we first moved in, we considered buying barrister bookcases (still want one someday), but they are extremely expensive. For good reason, but still ... here's an example of a real wood barrister:

Almost $1000, yipes! We did some shopping around and prices vary some, but it seemed like most of the single boxes were at least $150-$200 each (and then you just get as many as you want to stack). 

So then we considered an MDF barrister like this one:

Much better price ... but we hate MDF. Did you know that for a 3' wide bookcase, MDF can only hold about 9 pounds before it starts to sag? That just wasn't going to cut it for the amount of books we have. 

Then we considered building our own barristers, using this really handy guide:

There is a really helpful PDF on the second page of the website. If you are into woodworking and a little better than beginner, you could do this project. We looked at costs and thought we might be able to make this bookcase for around $400 (total for a 4-shelf case). We didn't factor glass costs into that, though. Still, it would have been a much better deal than any real wood versions we'd seen so far. BUT - I thought it would be a little too difficult for me and time consuming. It was the middle of the school year and we needed something quick so we could unload at least a few of our boxes of books. I wanted something simple.

So, I designed a much simpler bookcase and now we've made four of them. 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR BUILDING A SIMPLE BOOKCASE

(P.S.: a Kreg jig is essential to these instructions)

*Note that we used cheap boards from Lowes. I think the bookcase still looks nice, but with more costly/better boards, it could look even more professional. Also, if you don't hate sanding as much as me and you really sand down the tops of the shelves or put second coats of polyurethane, that could make it look more sleek. 

**These materials and instructions are for a  3' by 6' 4" bookcase with 4-6 shelves. It should be easy to adjust the dimensions to fit your needs; just factor in whether you need more or less wood. 

Materials:

Three 1x12x6 Whitewood Boards

- Use: sides, top, and bottom of bookcase

- Cost: $9.98 per board ($29.94)

Three 1x10x6 Whitewood Boards

- Use: 3-4 adjustable shelves and 1 stationary shelf

- Cost: $6.92 per board ($20.76)

Three 1x2x6 Whitewood Boards

- Use: shelf front trim/enforcers for 4-5 shelves

- Cost: $1.48 per board ($4.44)

1 Sheet 1/2 inch or 15/32 4' x 8' sheeting or some other plywood

- Use: backing for bookcase

- Cost: $18.67 for one sheet

* Note: we bought 3/4 inch sheets the first two times. That made the bookcases immensely more heavy than when we switched to 1/2 inch. Also, this is one place where you could spend more for it to look better, maybe with panels or something? The sheeting is not the prettiest, but it is also mostly covered by books in our bookcase.

Optional: 4 pre-made legs

- Use: legs so your bookcase doesn't just sit on the floor

- Cost: the "Portsmouth Bun Foot" I bought costs $6.98 per foot ($27.92 total) and is almost the most expensive part of the bookcase. It would be way less costly to build legs ourselves ... but I like how they look and don't want to go to that extra work. Since the rest of the bookcase is pretty inexpensive, I feel okay splurging on those legs. It is kind of ridiculous that they cost THAT much. 

32oz of Stain (we got Red Mahogany Minwax)

- Use: for color and to hide imperfections. Dark stain is good if you are using plywood for backing since it hides a lot of the not-pretty-parts of the plywood.

- Cost: $7.77

32oz Polyurethane (we got Minwax Semi-Gloss)

- Use: to seal the bookcase

- Cost: $10.77

A KREG JIG and screws for it! This design uses primarily Kreg screws plus about 20 regular wood screws for attaching the backing. 

Adjustable Shelf Supports (4 per adjustable shelf)

Total Cost:

Wood: $73.81

Stain/Sealer: $18.54

Legs: (optional) $27.92

Minimal cost for screws and shelf supports

Grand Total: $92.35 - $120.27

All right, now to the instructions! I just wanted to prove to you that it was worth it with the cost analysis.

Steps Overview:

1. Cut and Assemble the Bookcase Frame

2. Cut and Attach the Backing/Legs

3. Cut and Assemble the Shelves

4. Drill the Adjustable Shelf Holes

5. Stain and Seal

Steps 1-4 can easily be done in one day if you have all your materials and you start early. You can even stain at the end of the day if you get that far. If your drying conditions are ideal, putting on the polyurethane on day 2 makes this a quick weekend project. After that, you just need to wait a couple of days for the polyurethane to completely dry and out-gas before bringing the bookcase into your home to fill with books!

 

STEP 1: Cut and Assemble the Bookcase Frame

Sides: Cut two of the 1x12x6 boards to 71" for the sides of the bookcase. (Ok, I don't really know why I did that in the first place ... I think to shorten it since I'd be adding legs. But really, if the ends are not damaged at all, you could just leave it at 6'.  Or, if you want the bookcase to be no higher than 6', then you could cut down the sides so that once you add the legs, the bookcase is 6' tall from the ground.

Top and Bottom: Cut the remaining 1x12x6 board into two 35" pieces. Make sure to look over the boards thoroughly to decide which sides will be the inside and outside faces. Remember that the top and bottom outside faces won't really show.

Use the Kreg jig to attach the top and bottom INSIDE the sides. I use three Kreg holes on both ends of one side of the top and bottom pieces. The ones on the bottom piece end up being covered by books and the ones on the top hardly show. You could also fill them with Kreg hole fillers. I assemble the bookcase with the back side up so that when I go to attach the backing, it is already in the right position.

STEP 2: Cut and Attach the Backing and Legs

Even though you know the measurements of the outside edges, MEASURE AGAIN ANYWAY. Sometimes the cheaper boards are a little warped in the middle along the side edges, so measure corner to corner mainly. 

Cut the backing board to fit. For my bookcases, my measurements are always 71" for the sides and 36.5" across the top/bottom (my 35" cut plus 1.5" for the thickness of the side boards). I use a chalk line to mark the plywood then cut it with a jigsaw. That part is not fun since the piece is so big and you don't want wobbly edges since it will show when you are looking at the back edge of the bookcase.

Lay the backing over the frame. Align the corners and attach one of them first using regular wood screws. After one or two corners are attached, you may have to push straight any bowed sides to align them. Once, when we had a side piece bow inward, we had to cut a piece of wood and lay it inside the bookcase before putting the backing on to push out the side so it would align to the backing. 

We usually use 7 screws along each side (counting the corners) and 5 along the top and bottom (counting the corners), or about 20 screws total.
 

To attach the pre-made legs I bought, which have a screw already attached to the top, I measure in 2" square on the bottom piece at each corner. Drill a hole to fit the screw (I think they are 1/4" thick). Be careful not to drill all the way through the bottom board! Then screw in the pre-made leg. Now you can stand up your bookcase. 

  

STEP 3: Cut and Assemble the Shelves

Cut as many shelves as you would like from the 1x10x6 boards. You could just buy two of these boards if you want just the bottom shelf and 4 other shelves. To get 6 or 7 shelves, you'll need three of these boards. 

Basically you need to cut the shelves to fit inside the case frame, so for my bookcase they need to be 35", the same length as the top and bottom (since those fit inside the sides). HOWEVER, depending on what kind of shelf supports you buy, you will probably need to cut the shelves slightly shorter, except for the stationary shelf.

For the stationary shelf, cut the shelf the same length as the top and bottom. For each shelf, you will cut a piece of the 1x2x6 board to the same length as the shelf and attach it with Kreg screws. This adds support to the shelf so it won't sag, and it also looks nice in the bookcase. For the stationary shelf, you'll also make Kreg holes on the short sides of the shelf to attach it to the inside of the bookcase for support.

Decide where you want the stationary shelf to go, mark it, and make sure it will be level. I put mine around 42" from the inside bottom of the case frame. Attach it to the sides with Kreg screws. If the back of the bookcase isn't perfectly flush with the back of the stationary shelf, you may want to use regular wood screws to attach it from the back as well. Measuring that is a little tricky, but I have done it on all the bookcases and it helped. I suppose you could also use the Kreg jig for that too, if you think ahead about that and remember to adjust your Kreg jig for the thinner plywood backing.
 

 

For adjustable shelves, cut the shelves slightly less than the inside width of the bookcase. My shelf pegs look like this: 

So I have to account for a decent amount of space for the shelf to slip over the edge of the peg (like, maybe 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch total). I always have trouble cutting the shelves slightly too long and it is really frustrating to have to go cut them again later. Make sure to test the shelves before staining!

Add front trim to the adjustable shelves just like the stationary one.

 

STEP 4: Drill the Adjustable Shelf Holes

This part gets its own step because I dislike it so much. When it is over I feel like I am "home free" on the project. 

I have made a measuring "jig" for these holes but somehow they still always come out slightly off, or the drill slips a little and the hole isn't exactly level ... they are a pain. But, so far the worst ones were fixable by putting padding on my shelf pegs to level the shelf. Not ideal, but an okay fix. I drill holes every two inches starting 8 inches from the bottom of the case and 8 inches from the top of the adjustable shelf. I drill the holes at about 2 inches and 8 inches from the back of the case. My holes are 1/4" to match the pegs, and I use a peg to test the depth of each hole after I've cut them all, deepening any that need it. Again, be careful not to cut all the way through the side!
 

STEP 5: Stain and Seal

Whew, by now, you are probably tired of this project and ready to be done if you are anything like me. I just want it finished so I can put my books on it! 

Stain the bookcase. I use a rag to wipe on the stain. I stain everything except the bottom since the bookcase is upright and too heavy for me to want to lay it over just for that. The legs can be tricky if you buy pre-made fancy ones like mine that have grooves. Also, the backing sucks up a lot of stain, but 32oz is always more than enough. I think you could maybe do two bookcases with that much, actually.

The  trickiest part here is staining the adjustable shelves. I use these little pyramid-shaped stands to sit the shelves on. I stain the backside, wait an hour or so, then flip it and stain the top. Since the pyramids only touch at a few points, it doesn't mess up the stain too much even if it is still damp.

Wait at least overnight until the stain is dry, then brush on your preferred polyurethane. Again, you'll have to do the adjustable shelves in two stages. Be careful not to overdo it on the polyurethane here .... when I did some of my shelves, the poly made my stain run a bit and make "drips" on the front edge of the shelves. 

Now, all you have to do is wait for the bookcase to dry and out-gas.

Here are all four of our bookcases in action:

 

Review: Every Day by David Levithan

Mid-June, I read David Levithan's Every Day. I've been getting through several YA novels this summer that are on the state reading lists for the upcoming school year, and this was one of them. Sadly, I ended up not liking the book very much. I say sadly because I was really interested and excited about the idea of the book . . . but the execution did not appeal to me. You can find many other reviews on the book that give you a synopsis, but I'll give a short one here:

Narrator/main character "A" wakes up every day in a different body. A resides in each body for one day only, and usually just tries to fit into the person's regular routine and not shake things up. The reader follows A through a couple of months at age sixteen (A only wakes up in the bodies of people the same age as A). One day, A falls in love with Rhiannon, the girlfriend of Justin, a boy who A inhabits. A wants to try to keep seeing Rhiannon, but as you can imagine, A's situation makes this difficult. (Luckily A swaps between people usually within a few hours of one another.)

The idea was really neat I thought, and I wanted to see how the author explained how A would deal with the difficulties this kind of life would bring. I will not be too wary of spoiling things, so watch out.

Positives: The interesting idea. Each chapter is a different day, a different person, and there are a couple that are really touching in how A deals with the person's situation (for example, deciding to "interfere" and tell a suicidal girl's dad how she feels, when A usually tries not to interfere too often). And, the few "bonus" chapters at the end detailing some days before the novel starts were pretty good as a short story on their own.

Negatives: Almost everything else. Number 1, which most of the other reviews I read after finishing the book hit on as well, was that the narrator is too "preachy." Really, it sounded like I was just reading the author's thoughts instead of a distinct voice for A. The reason for this probably stems from the fact that author David Levithan is gay, and in this novel he makes a LOT of statements through A about tolerance and acceptance. Now, I'm not against those ideas being in YA novels. However, to me it felt like the author was telling me how to feel through his narrator, instead of letting me decide for myself or make a judgement based on the actions of the characters. Plus, there were some times when I just didn't agree with the main character's ideas on those subjects. That's my own personal opinion, I know, but it colored my reading, so I'll be honest about it here.

A is especially repetitive about convincing Rhiannon that A sees him/herself as neither a a boy nor a girl. I can understand the reasoning behind that, given that A switches between the two all the time. It is harder for Rhiannon to wrap her mind around this - which I can also understand, because living 16 years in one body would make it hard to understand. I imagine A as a boy, probably because A first appears in the body of Justin (Rhiannon's boyfriend), so even though the author probably would not like it, I'm going to call A "he" from now on for consistency and ease of writing. I noticed that a lot of reviewers also automatically called A "he" and did not mention that A sees him/herself as neither, so I felt like I at least wanted to mention this fact. (I do wonder if the love interest had been a boy rather than a girl whether I/others would have viewed A more as a girl.)

So, one thing that bothered me stems from the above point. When A meets up with Rhiannon in a girl's body (often going to great lengths and breaking that vow of not meddling with the body's life), it is harder for Rhiannon to show A affection. A seems to try to make Rhiannon feel guilty about this. That's bothersome. Rhiannon is clearly a heterosexual female, and has lived so for 16 years. Even if you agree (like A seems to think), that we should just "love who we love" regardless of gender or anything, that does not negate that fact that most people are attracted to one over the other, and it's not Rhiannon's "fault" that she feels awkward being with A as a girl.

Also, I don't like that A is so selfish. He tries to make it like he's not, but he is. This is realistic, but hard to read in the first person and still "like" the narrator. He falls in love with Rhiannon while in Justin's body and he just "knows" that Justin is a jerk and Rhiannon deserves better. A acts like he is far beyond his years, which I guess is believable considering the way his life has been lived, but he sounds pompous sometimes. Besides just seeing Rhiannon more often, then finally spilling his secret, he tries to persuade her to break up with Justin, and not even very subtly (maybe that's better, though). He pretends it is for her own good, and maybe it is because Justin kind of is a jerk, but clearly A is also being selfish. Then he wants Rhiannon and him to be able to have a relationship, and ignores how difficult this will be for her - she is clearly unsure about it and finally makes it clear that it just can't work, him trying to see her all the time and dragging all these bodies all over the place. She can see that this is selfish, and he only seems to see his desire for her. Ok, a couple of times he debates and maybe realizes that this is not fair to his hosts, and I will grant that it does not seem fair for A that his life has to be lived the way it does and he can't really have a stable family and friends - but another part of me was like, well, this is the hand he has been dealt and he is going to have to live with it, as cruel as that may be.

MAJOR END-OF-BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD

Towards the end, A wakes up in the body of a boy he deems a nice guy, and he asks Rhiannon to meet him and pretend it is their first date. He has, by this time, figured out how to sort of implant what memories he wants the body's real inhabitant to keep the next day. So, the boy A is in will remember meeting Rhiannon and going on a stellar date with her. That night, he basically tells Rhiannon to stay with this guy and start a new relationship with him. Yeah, he basically picks out a guy for her since he can't be with her. Weird, controlling, and silly.

Last, the final thing that made me most angry with this book. Here is a specific passage that may illustrate the preachy-ness and how the book is really not-so-tolerant-as-it-purports-to-be in some cases.

Day 6023: "Even before I open my eyes, I like Vic. Biologically female, gendered male. Living within the definition of his own truth, just like me. He knows who he wants to be. Most people our age don't have to do that. They stay within the realm of the easy. If you want to live within the definition of your own truth, you have to choose to go through the initially painful and ultimately comforting process of finding it."

Problems with this passage:

A) I have a more objective view of "truth." While I realize that some things we call "truths" can be subjective (say, I might say "Math is hard" and that may be "true" for me but not for someone else) I think "Truth" needs to be objective or how can we have it? So I'm not sure what A means, "the definition of your own truth." I guess he means that you could be born female, like Vic,  but feel that in "truth," you are male.

B) The bigger issue: I feel the author is basically saying that anyone who is cisgender (I think I am using that correctly: someone whose "mental" sex aligns with their physical sex, as opposed to transgender) is limited, scared, or wrong. As if because I was born female, identify as female, and am attracted to men, I am taking the "easy" path. I'm sorry, but this does not mesh with everything I hear about people being "born" the way they are, their identity and desires not necessarily up to them to "choose." Levithan's narrator says "find," I guess, but what does that mean? I have to go out and try everything out to figure out what I already knew about myself? And if I don't choose to do this or don't "have to do that" as he says, am I somehow inferior than those who did have to do so? I can understand that the types of people he is referring to go through a lot of angst and perhaps persecution for "living in their own truth" ... but I am offended by this passage that makes it seem like I am taking the easy (suggesting inferior) path.

Levithan may not have meant consciously to make his writing sound this way, but to me it does. I felt continually bombarded by A's thoughts and opinions without room to make my own conclusions. I think drawing conclusions rather than being told what to think or how to feel is important in a YA novel. Yes, in school we (I'm a teacher) guide students to understand certain readings of books, but hopefully we do so in a way that helps them make their own assumptions and conclusions. Plus, I hope most of us let them keep their own opinions about the story, even if to us personally that opinion is skewed or missing something. We present the ways of looking at the story, but we don't force them to change their beliefs or morals or opinions about situations. Levithan's book made me feel like I was being forced to listen to the narrator's beliefs on everything and like if I had a differing opinion, I was being stupid, like Rhiannon when she could not show affection to A as a girl as easily.

I was sad that a book with such an interesting and promising premise turned out difficult to read. I tried imagining that A, being a teenager, is just spouting his own ideas, like teenagers do, and it was up to me to look at him as a person with flaws (selfishness, rash action) as well as good things, and make my own judgements on what he said ... but at the same time I felt that despite the fact that A is flawed as a character, the author wanted me to completely agree with all his opinions. It's hard to explain this. I guess I feel like an impressionable young reader might just take the word of this narrator as gospel without really thinking about what is being said or who is saying it because it is said in a more eloquent tone of the "teenager that every teenager wants to be," smart, funny, witty, etc. Overall, I like the idea and one or two interesting or poignant chapters, but overall Levithan's writing and A's voice made it not enjoyable for me.

Review: Witch and Wizard by James Patterson

Just finished Witch & Wizard by James Patterson. The bad news: it was not exactly what I was expecting. The good news: it made me feel more confident about the writing abilities of my 10th graders this past year. I'll explain what I mean by that later on.

First of all, my expectations. I had seen this book around and--this is pretty superficial, but don't judge--the cover looked cool and the title was catchy. I was intrigued. After reading the back cover, which introduces Whit and Wisty Allgood, the teenage protagonists, I was even more interested, A) because it was Young Adult fantasy literature, which I enjoy, and B) (again, perhaps superficial) because their names were cool. I guessed quickly that Wisty was short for Wisteria, and I thought Whit was short for Whitman. I thought, that would be a neat baby name for an English major (I would probably not name my own kid that, not being a huge Whitman fan, but it's interesting nonetheless). Whit is a cute nickname. I expected literary allusions galore. There were a few. Whit actually stands for Whitford.

I think the problem was that I was expecting a Young Adult novel geared towards adults, or that would interest adults. For example, I think the Harry Potter series is a  Young Adult series that could be appreciated by adults. Also, books by Tamora Pierce. I should maybe have taken the hint that the readership age was intended to be a bit younger when one of my 8th graders was reading it, but some of them read a variety of books which are intended for slightly older readers.

While the idea behind the novel was interesting (the New Order bans books, music, and art of the previous era, and most importantly, anyone associated with magic), the set up of the book left something to be desired. I expected more detail and background about the New Order and about the main characters, but the reader is thrown right into the action. Sometimes that is an interesting choice for a novel, but in this case everything just went very fast, the villains were kind of flat, and the chapters were very short and sort of episodic. It was very plot based. Whit and Wisty narrate the story to the reader, which is ok, but their voices are a bit too ... stereotypical "teenager," is the best way I can describe it. Like, a little contrived, maybe?

I did not hate it, but I was expecting a little more grown up fantasy, I guess, especially from James Patterson, who regularly writes books for adults. I'll admit, I've only read one, and it was a long time ago, so I don't know his writing style well, but I know he writes a lot of detective stories. Not to say there is anything wrong with him writing this, but I see that it is not what I was looking for when I picked it up off the shelf.

Regarding how it made me feel about my 10th graders: I will say that reading this book made me feel better about the novel my 10th graders wrote for National Novel Writing Month and that I am working on final-editing so we can self publish it. Their main characters were all teens, too. The characters' way of speaking could have been more realistic in some cases (I thought, how many of you speak like this? Why are you making your characters speak like this?). Their novel was very plot-centric, with not a lot of character development, but there was some sporadic background information and some attempts at making the characters change or grow. The chapters were a bit longer than Patterson's, his being around 2-3 pages each, very choppy. My students' chapters were very episodic, too, but that's because I gave each person a different chapter and we tried to plan out the chapters by events that would happen in them so that it was easier for them to outline and write them in one month. The story itself was a little inconsistent in some places--I tried to amend some of that here and there without changing too much of what they wrote--but for forty 16-year-olds who are not all keen on writing, I was pretty proud of them. Patterson's novel was fast-paced, like theirs, with one thing popping up after another. I feel not so critical of them after reading his novel.

I am afraid that sounds cruel to Patterson, but really I think it's just that I expected something meant for older teens and adults. Geared toward younger teens, I'd say the story would definitely keep them reading. Perhaps the same can be said of my 10th graders' novel--geared toward their age group, it's definitely an action-packed story that, although it may not be the peak of literature, is enjoyable nonetheless.

P.S. Just after posting this, I found what looks like a graphic novel version of the book - I think that might work well. The artwork would be a fun addition and maybe the style of the story would work better in graphic novel form. 

NaNoWriMo, Classroom Style

This post would have been way more awesome if I'd written it while going through this project - I could have included my genuine excitement and worries as they occurred instead of after the fact - but things were way too hectic for that this year. Either way, I'd planned from the start to post about this endeavour at my husband's suggestion, and as the project did not totally flop, I'll go ahead with it. 

What project is this, you ask? Why, persuading my 10th graders to write a 50,000 word novel together. In one month.

As the school year crept onward, I suddenly began thinking about National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, an event that takes place every November when hundreds of thousands of people attempt to write a novel in one month. You can learn more about the event here if you've never heard of it. Someday I'd love to participate in this event myself, but with a new job and a graduate course, this year was obviously not the year. But I had also read about the young writers program associated with NaNoWriMo, and I got to wondering if I could make this project work with my students. At first I thought that maybe next year I could plan ahead and do this ... but then I decided, why not try now? If it turned out well, I could make it a tradition. If it flopped ... then I'd just have to do my own someday and be happy with that. Over a couple of days, between ponderings of how I would justify this project and how I could convince a group of students to go through with it, I decided to try it.

First I had to decide which group of students to do the project with. I teach a section of about 15 seniors, two sections of 20 10th graders, two sections of 20 8th graders, and a section of 8 junior high kids in a reading class. I pretty quickly narrowed the choice down to 10th grade. The 8th graders this year just aren't ready for that much heavy writing and all working together, and I wasn't sure I could convince the seniors to put in that much effort. Several of my 10th graders, however, had already shown some creativity in writing short stories and alternate endings for textbook assignments. Sometimes the creativity was borderline strange, but it usually made me laugh. There were also enough of them that each person could write a pretty short chapter for his or her contribution. 

I spent the rest of September creating powerpoints and charts and schedules and figuring out how to convince those kids that they could write a novel in a month together, and that they should want to. My biggest worry was that some of them would just blow off the project. Well, I guess my other biggest fear was that they would all mutiny and refuse, but I figured if I could get several to decide they'd have to do this project since I, as their teacher, was assigning it, then most of the rest would follow suit. 

This is a long post. Feel free to read which parts you are interested in at this point. More than anything, I wanted to get down something for posterity - for next year - so I won't forget the plans and feelings of this first attempt.

Here is how I justified this very, very time-consuming "creative writing" project:

As the plan came together for trying NaNoWriMo with my students, I realized we would definitely have to use the majority of November for writing, though at first I also imagined I could have some textbook-curriculum interspersed. NaNoWriMo rules dictate that participants may not start actually writing until November 1st, but I certainly didn't want us to dive in unprepared. The more I thought about it, I decided that October would need to be a major planning month. Although the majority of October would still follow our regular pattern of textbook/grammar work, there would be days with short discussions here and there to prepare the students and outline the novel. (These got more frequent as we neared the end of the month.) Basically, I knew going in that this project would take up most of two months, although through most of October and for a week or two in November we also had "regular" work.

My justification for this project (in case anyone had opposed it, which no one did once I explained it to them) was that it would work on many different skills. Writing a coherent chapter was obviously one aspect, but the students were also supposed to make sure their chapter meshed with other chapters. They'd each have a deadline for their chapter to be "due" that would be counted for points, a word count to meet, editing and revising to do once they'd gotten their chapter in, and work with the entire class to make sure their chapters were consistent. I think meeting deadlines is a major thing they need to work on. They didn't all do splendidly with that, but most of them got the chapter on time or only a day late. There were a few who needed extra prompting. 

In the future, I think I could cut this project down, now knowing what steps are essential and which things I will have to push them to make decisions on quickly. For example, I probably could have made the preparations in October take up less time by having them do a lot more writing out of ideas and then collaborating in a more succinct time period. Also, we spent a lot of time in the computer lab during November. What I originally wanted to do was have two days a week in the lab and then on the other days only have the person whose chapter was due type on the computer in the back of my room or use the library. Instead, when I saw that many of them were starting slow, I used a lot more lab time to work (although there was one week where we kept to the strict two-day schedule and were able to do other work as well). Next time I would be firmer on making lab time count, since once students were done with their chapters it was easy for them to want to play games or do something else less productive. 


Here is what I did to allow the students to share chapters:

We used a Wordpress blog to upload each chapter in the novel. I started out thinking something like Google Drive would be handy, but personal email is blocked on our school computers for students, so that was not going to work. Then I checked out Edmodo, which is a really neat site, but to upload chapters the students would have to attach them as Word documents, and they would not be able to search easily for specific ones or to update them later. Luckily, Wordpress is not blocked on the computers (although Blogger is, unfortunately). I set up a blog and set it to private. I made each student create an account and invited them using their username to join the blog as an author, enabling them to write and edit their own posts and to comment on others, but not to edit the posts of other students or to mess with the settings as an administrator (me). I only had about 4 students who didn't have internet access at home, but one of them did a great job at typing up her chapter at home and bringing it on USB the day it was due. Another worked only at school and still managed to write about 2,000 words for her chapter, far more than the requirement of 1,250. They had plenty of time to work ahead, so there weren't many problems except with the ones who procrastinated in class and couldn't work at home (only a couple).


Here is how I tried to convince them that they could do this:

I knew as soon as the idea came into my head that though my 10th graders were the ones most likely to succeed at this, there would be several who would still need a lot of convincing. I hoped that even though there might be a few who shirked the assignment anyway, I could get the majority to work hard and pick up the slack. We had an even 40 students by the time November came around due to a transfer student (I think his coming in on the first day of the project was probably a little scary for him), so each student needed to write 1,250 words for us to hit 50,000. I assured them that, single-spaced, that was really only about 2 pages. I had a whole Powerpoint in which I outlined how much they would each have to write, how we could split up the chapters between our two classes, what our genre could be, how to plan the plot, and much more. 

I also made many tabs on our Wordpress site with tips, reminders, the chapter "schedule," and fun things to keep them motivated. There was a countdown, search bar, and reminders of whose day it was to write.

 
Here is how I decided to schedule the writing:

I split up the novel into 1st half and 2nd half. After lots of talk with the students, we/I gave the 1st half to my earlier class and the 2nd half to the later class. I then asked them to suggest the best day for their chapter to be due, so that no one without internet had a weekend day, and I filled in the days based on their suggestions and my own judgement. Based on who was in each class, it might have worked better if I had switched the halves, because some of our 2nd half students had a tough time getting caught up or finishing their chapters ... for some of them it was because they were writing chapters when the 1st half wasn't completely done yet, but for others it was procrastination. Perhaps if they had had the earlier chapters we could have worked to pick up the slack a little better before we got to the real meat of the story. Or, I could have had a split narrative, like the recent YA novel Legend, and given each class chapters based on who was narrating. Or it could have been random. I think the way we did it worked well except that they were very scared about how the chapter writing was scheduled. 

With only 30 days tops to write, there was no way to have one person write per day. Instead, I scheduled our main writing to be done by the 20th of November and scheduled chapters like this: On November 1, chapters 1 and 21 were written. On November 2, chapters 2 and 22 were written. And so on. I understand why they were wary about this; however, I also attempted to work with them to plan out the storyline in GREAT detail. For the early class, this worked out pretty well for most chapters (admittedly, 5 of their chapters were also "exposition," so that made it simpler). Perhaps that is one reason why that class did not have as much trouble at the beginning in getting started writing early. The second half had a lot of holes going into November, which I think is one reason it was easier for them to get stuck in a spot, or for things to go a bit crazy in our story (which they inevitably did ... the other reason for this is that the majority of my later class LOVES horror and thriller movies). I think planning even more thoroughly next year will help - I will try to give more of my procrastinators early chapters so that they will be forced to start working earlier and I can push them longer. Many students who had later chapters wanted to goof off in the lab until it was their day, despite my encouragement to catch up reading the written chapters and then start drafting, even if the chapter before their own was not finished. 

Here is how I assessed this assignment:

How to grade this project? I had a rubric early on that showed what I was looking for:

10 points possible for meeting the first deadline for their chapter with a significant amount of words (I mainly took off points if they uploaded more than a day late or if they only had a short paragraph and took a long time to flesh it out, which made it hard for the next student to write)

5 points for meeting the length of 1250 words

5 points each for logical transitions/organization, a consistent point of view and tense, appropriate tone/voice, eliminating most grammar mistakes, and being descriptive

10 points for working productively as a group and on their own throughout the project.

For a total of 50 points. 

I kept a sheet made in excel with their names, Wordpress usernames, the date their chapters were due and a space to score that aspect, and a space for notes on how well they worked in class. I used this to note how many words each student had towards the end, as well, so I could tell which ones I needed to push harder and when word count had been upped so I could update those specific chapters in my Word document which counted their total word count. (I could also keep track of which ones were updated by getting emails sent to my teacher email from the blog. There were lots of emails on days we were in the lab, but I could go through them pretty fast and that was helpful for knowing which chapters had had only minor editing and which had been really worked on, since the emails showed what changes were made.) 


Here is how I think they did:

Overall, I think they did FANTASTIC.

With Thanksgiving falling right before the novel was due, I was afraid they would all stop at break and we wouldn't make our word count. I tried to push everyone to get their word count up by that Tuesday night (last day of class that week) by making the chapters due that night, but I soon realized that we wouldn't make it that way, and that if they instead had one more day, some of them might write on their day off. I sent out emails to their parents and to them through Wordpress and frantically updated the Wordpress site with pleas to write a few hundred words more on Wednesday, and it did help. We left school Tuesday with over 1000 words left to write (can't remember the exact number). Tuesday night I believe we were around 900, and I made a pact that if we got within 500, I would finish the novel for them, but not more than that. I really wish they'd been able to make it themselves. Every time I'd see an email on Wednesday saying that a few hundred more words had been written, I was ecstatic and thought "We can make this!" Then a few hours would pass and we'd still be 700 words away, and I was sure we wouldn't. I kept holding out, and by the end of Wednesday, we had 49, 634 words. We were within 500, and though I hoped to see a couple of them finish their chapters just after Thanksgiving, I went ahead and wrote an epilogue to push us to 50,000. The students' final count stayed at 49,634, and I am a bit sad that a couple of them couldn't push out a couple hundred more words when they knew we were so close.

But.

The real reason we didn't make it was because of a few procrastinators, as any teacher knows there always will be. What strikes me, though, is that a couple of students who were 500 or 700 words away on Tuesday night actually finished their chapters in time, one in particular who I was sure would not finish. There were about 5 students who never finished. One got sick the last week before break with only 200 words left, so she was really close, but just couldn't get it done. There were a couple who were mid-range, 500 words away or so, about half done. But there were at least 2 who were 900+ words away. I don't say this to complain or make them look bad. I was disappointed but not surprised that a couple of students left this much undone. I say this instead to point out that we had more than 3,000 words unwritten by students who didn't finish ... but we ended up only 400 words away from 50k without my help. I was more than impressed by how much some of my other students wrote that made up for the few who didn't do the work. I had a girl who wrote almost twice as much as was required, several who wrote an extra 200 or so, and many who got in at least 50 extra words to help out when I asked them to. 

I chose to help them finish up because after a month, most of them had worked very hard, some going above and beyond what they were required, and in the end, they wrote 49,600 words of a story that MADE SENSE. I mean, granted, it is a ridiculous and crazy story at points, but it has a beginning, middle, and end, is definitely exciting, and had maybe one or two slight inconsistencies. In my opinion, they had already won. 

We now plan to do more editing, finish up, and format the novel and self-publish it. Createspace offers free paperback versions to "winners" of NaNoWriMo, so we will get some free and buy any others at hopefully about $5 per book. 

I have so much  more I could say about this project and I would love to share that with other educators who might want to try a similar project, but I could write pages (well, I already have) about it. If you have any specific questions about how I made this project work, let me know in a comment and I'll answer in more detail. 

800 Books and Counting!

Great news, readers: Our library just hit 800 books! That is, we have at least 800 books in our home, catalogued in our Calibre library software. Matt has many more books of his own still stored at his parents' house, but they have not gotten to move here yet, or we'd probably be at 1000! 

I am so excited I had to make a short post to share the news. I will try to add updated Book Ruler art to this post if I get the chance, because many of the books that just got added were for my summer classes; therefore, the "Read by Elizabeth" section has increased a lot and I am proud of that. Matt is also hoping to get some reading in and finish some of the books on his list - but work is pretty busy for him and it is harder for him to find time to fit in reading (whereas half of my days are spent getting reading for class done right now). 

Anyway, just wanted to share the milestone as we make our way toward our goal of a 1000+ book library someday.

Calibre/Library Update

Made some new "art" (ok, it's just a bar graph, nothing too special) in Inkscape to compare the number of books we own* versus those we've read or want to read.

Just wanted to share!

P.S.: I created the graph to lay horizontally, but so that it is easier to see and read on the blog, I rotated it.

*By own, I mean books we own that are currently in the library at our house. There are more at Matt's parents' house still. I had to have all mine with me and he graciously allowed mine to move in first, leaving not enough room for all of his.