Third-graders now published authors

Authors of the new book, Life in Our Salt Marsh ­– all students in Holly Merrow’s Grade 3 class at Scarborough’s Wentworth Intermediate School – include back row, from left: Matthew Hale, Ethan Mutrie, Timothy Thibodeau, Madison Blanchard and Katie Mueller; middle row: Thomas Hanson, Brooke Leeman, Ashley O’Brien, Dakota Donahue, Bella Fitser and Bryan Ranzetta; and front row: Nick Caruso, Max Piispanen, Kendall Shevenell and Ian Gott. Photo by Duke Harrington

SCARBOROUGH — They say everyone has at least one book inside them. If that’s true, one group of young authors has got an early start on their publishing careers.

Students in Holly Merrow’s third-grade class at Wentworth Intermediate School in Scarborough have produced a 48-page book, “Life in Our Salt Marsh,” all about the birds, mammals, insects and other creatures that live in Scarborough Marsh.

Twenty children spent two months researching their topic, compiling their data, drafting encyclopedic entries and creating illustrations.

“It’s really an amazing achievement,” said Principal Anne-Mayre Dexter. “I’ve been here a long time and, as far as I can recall, this is the first time any of our students have produced an actual hardcover book.”

“I feel proud and excited at the same time,” said Dakota Donahue. “My parents and grandparents are very happy. They each got a copy and now it’s on their bookshelf.”

“It was really cool,” said Kendall Shevenell, “because I thought about how many authors have written books and drawn pictures and how famous they’ve been, and now I’m one of them.”

“I felt proud that we actually got to finish the book, because it was so challenging,” said Madison Blanchard, whose task was to research the mummichog, a type of fish. “We had a date we had to get it done by and we had to do things over and over and over until we got it right.”

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Merrow, “but I’ve always wanted to create a book with children.”

Merrow, who made a mid-career about-face from investment consulting to scratch the teaching bug, says she dared to launch the book project thanks to her experience in Portland schools using the “expeditionary learning” model. Developed by Outward Bound in the early 1960s, expeditionary learning focuses on “the primacy of self-discovery” by engaging students in “real world learning experiences.”

“Thanks to that, I have a lot of experience working with kids on projects,” says Merrow.

“I really have to give her [Merrow] a lot of credit,” said Dexter. “She not only introduced the students to so many skills they’ll use throughout their lives, she drew them into the community, and the community into the classroom.”

Apart from giving students an early preview of the deadline pressures they’ll face throughout their educational careers, not to mention their working lives, the book project allowed the student-authors to exercise a number of skills that are part of the Maine Learning Results, along with a few practical skills that that are just as important, though rarely called for on test day.

There was dealing with disappointment, when one didn’t draw a first choice of topic animal, or win the cover contest. But there was also cooperation and collaboration, as students pitched in to help each other, or worked together to decide how to format the book, and compile an index of vocabulary words.

Students took two field trips to the marsh, once on a conservation clean-up day, availing themselves of the chance to view their subjects in their natural habitat. They also worked with Linda Woodard of the Maine Audubon Society, who acted as impromptu fact checker.

Patricia Gott, a published author and grandmother to one of Merrow’s students, Ian Gott, also came in to help prepare students for the publishing process.

“One thing I learned about making a book is that it’s really frustrating,” said student Bryan Ranzetta. “Typing for me was a lot of work because I haven’t done a lot of that before.”

The book, published through Kansas-based Nationwide Learning, Inc. (www.nathionwide-learning.com), which has specialized in creating student-made books since its founding in 1994, also compliments that local curriculum, which calls on students to study the local marshes.

”We were writing about our salt marsh, not the Florida salt marsh,” said Ethan Mutrie, who claims to have not missed losing a change to write about crocodiles. “I really wanted to write about the state and town I’m in.”

“For me the marsh is a really cool place where you can find lots of animals that you’ve heard of before, but also lots you haven’t,” said Max Piispanen. “I think it really is a place worth preserving. It’s a place to take care of and keep going.”