Leesburg DLI Students Write Book

LEESBURG – Fourth-grade students in the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program at Leesburg Elementary on Tuesday celebrated the publication of a book they wrote as a class.
The book, “¡Contando ando!,” was published last week through Studentreasures Publishing.
People can order copies online through the Studentreasures website at studentreasures.com.
DLI teacher Clara Borda said this is the fourth year she’s had students write the book as part of the DLI program.
Some traditional students, who are only learning English, also wrote a book called “Learning from the Experts!,” where the students wrote about a topic they felt they were experts in. Topics included basketball, rainbow looms, robotics, LEGOs, art and Pokémon GO.
Borda said the main standard this year was for students to be able to write stories in English and Spanish to use sequences of events and to use transitional expressions. Students were taught step by step how to write a story.
Stacy Huffer, a fourth-grade teacher at Leesburg Elementary School, and Borda reviewed the steps of writing and transitional expressions with students. Fourth-grade teacher Ashley Myers did an informative text with students because it was part of the standards this year. For “Learning from the Experts!,” traditional students only had to write the informational text.
For “¡Contando ando!,” DLI students created a story through their imagination, using vocabulary they’ve learning both in English and Spanish. There were vocabulary words students were encouraged to use.
The process of writing the book was started in November. This year, students also wrote a biography of themselves to be put online.
“The idea was, it was not only good for them to write a story, but also to show who were the writers of the story,” Borda said, adding it was also part of the Spanish standards.
Borda said students’ vocabulary have grown significantly through the process. The idea of getting students to write stories was to showcase the vocabulary they’ve learned.