The Gifted and Talented Students of the Lew Muckle Elementary held a book party in honor of their published book “Mystery in the Abandon Homes” on Wednesday, May 22, 2019, in the gifted and talented classroom. The book party began at 9:00 a.m. where students saw the hard copy version of their book for the first time. Students were extremely excited and could be heard uttering phrases such as “I really like it” and “it looks so good!”
Gifted and Talented teacher Verne Graham greeted guests. “I am so excited to see our parents, our teachers, our administrators and of course our lovely student-authors. Let’s give them a big round of applause. Today, our gifted and talented students have become published authors.”
The Gifted and Talented students published their book through a national student-publishing program, Studenttreasures Publishing. As part of the publishing process, students planned, wrote and illustrated their own books using its free publishing kit. The Studenttreasures publishing program provides teachers an easy way to incorporate any lesson plan from math and science to history, art and more into a fun and memorable activity. Publishing a book in the classroom engages students through hands-on learning and inspires a love of reading, writing and drawing.
The students worked relentlessly on their book for about a month. The idea for the book first started with all the students submitting a title anonymously, and then selecting their favorite from the group. The selected title was submitted by Barecia Brookes.
Students had a variety of ideas for the title/topic from animals to mocko jumbies; but they chose a topic that they thought would be easy for everyone to write about and enjoy.
Graham elaborated on the journey “I can tell you that once they got writing, I don’t want to say I felt sorry for them, but they just had to read and reread the text. I know after a while they got tired of reading each other's stories.”
Following Graham’s brief remarks, each student then had the opportunity to read his or her story out loud.
One creative detail of the book that makes it more special is that instead of a formal font being used, the book was published with each student’s handwriting. Students will be able to look back when they’re older and see how much their handwriting changed and see how they wrote at this point in their lives.
This is the first time Graham’s Gifted and Talented class created its own published book.
One student Imariz Taylor said, “It feels really good to have a published book, I would like to do it again,” where fellow classmates, Aure’ Baptiste and Carilyz Marmolejos agreed.
Mrs. Graham honored former St. Croix District Deputy Superintendent Faith George-Boone with her own hardcopy for her time and effort in help making this a reality.
When asked Graham how it feels to have a class publishes a book, she stated, “it’s exciting. It was a project that took a little while. But being that it’s a gifted and talented class I had to make sure that I stretch their abilities… They knew it was going to be a long road but once they got started on that road-with the writing journey, they were happy and got they got excited for each other as they read each other stories. Even with the illustrations, they liked the aspect of drawing their stories.”
To obtain a copy of the book, please contact Verne Graham at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call the Lew Muckle Elementary School (340)- 778-5286.
Lew Muckle Elementary School Gifted and Talented Class
4th Graders
Aure’ Baptiste
Barecia Brooks
Aseel Dawod
Micaiah Jones
Brittani Matthew
Pristine Tutein
5th Graders
Amiyah Henderson
J'Nique Jacob
Carilyz Marmolejos
Khm-shawa Samuel
Imariz Taylor
Former St. Croix District Deputy Superintendent Faith George-Boone and Gifted & Talented Teacher Verne Graham.
