🗑 15 student writing ideas

Plus info on Be an Author Month by Book Creator

Author

Matt Miller
February 24, 2025

The authors in your classroom

You may already have authors in your classroom or school.

They might aspire to write a book one day. Or to become a writer for a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

They might want to be a content creator on Twitch, TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram. (Let’s be honest … they alllllllll think they’re going to be professional YouTube influencers, don’t they???)

No matter the platform, there’s an urge by many young people …

… an urge to share their ideas with an audience.

An audience that’ll recognize their ideas. That’ll see and hear them as a respected person.

That’s the power of authorship … and thankfully, students can be authors — publish, write, record — about practically anything.

There are more platforms than ever to help get their message out.

📆 BE AN AUTHOR MONTH: Book Creator is hosting Be an Author Month in March with teacher AND student resources to help students brainstorm, create, and publish their work to an audience.

Below, we’ll tell you all about it and point you to those resources to encourage the authors in your midst.

From my keynote speech, “The Attention Switch”

✈️ ROAD TRIP: I’m heading to Seattle this week to be the closing keynote of the NCCE Conference! NCCE is the biggest edtech conference in the Northwest.

This wraps up a very fast-paced two months for me, doing six in-person events and six virtual events in January and February.

🎙 SPEAKING: If your school, district, or event is interested in having me speak in the 2025-26 school year, email Jeff at [email protected] for details, pricing, and availability. Back-to-school slots are almost full!

Inside:

  • This isn’t traditional business news

  • 👀 DTT Digest: Guided notes, green screen, tiered assignments, Amazon

  • 💡 The Big Idea: Be an Author Month with Book Creator

  • 🗄 Template: Make a Family Feud review game

  • 😄 Smile of the day: Only 19 minutes?!? ⏰

  • 👋 How we can help

This isn’t traditional business news

Welcome to Morning Brew—the free newsletter designed to keep you in the know on the business news impacting your career, company, and life—in a way you didn’t know you needed.

Note: this isn’t traditional business news. Morning Brew’s approach cuts through the noise and bore of classic business media, opting for short writeups, witty jokes, and above all—presenting the facts.

Save time, actually enjoy business news, and join over 4 million professionals reading daily.

👀 DTT Digest

4 teaching resources worth checking out today

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

Get ready for "Be An Author Month" in March with Book Creator!

This message is sponsored by Book Creator

March is right around the corner, and you know what that means—it's time to unleash your students' creativity with Book Creator's "Be An Author Month!" 🎉

We’re so excited to partner with Book Creator to bring literacy to life for students everywhere!

This year, Be An Author Month is about Telling Your Story—empowering students to explore their unique narratives and share their perspectives with the world.

Once again Book Creator is inviting students to become published authors, sharing their unique voices and stories. With an array of new tools and resources, this is the perfect opportunity for your students to dive into the world of digital storytelling.

How to take part in Be An Author Month

Head over to the Book Creator website to get started. There you’ll find:

  • 🗄️ Templates to help with reading and writing

  • 📗 An Activity Journal with daily prompts throughout March.

  • 📺 Inspirational webinars featuring expert authors and educators.

  • 🏅 A special personal narrative competition for the whole world to participate in!

Imagine the pride and excitement as they see their work come to life on the screen!

What is Book Creator?

Book Creator (bookcreator.com) lets students create with text, images, audio, video, pen annotations, and more. Students can leave comments on each other’s work — and share it to the world with a link (if you want).

The free plan includes one teacher library with up to 40 books and unlimited students. The teacher premium plan ($13/mo, $130/yr) adds unlimited libraries, 1,000 books, a translation tool, over 800 page templates, and more.

What can you do with Book Creator?

Students can use Book Creator to create more than traditional books.

There’s so much! When you combine the text, image, audio, video and media embed features in Book Creator, the sky’s the limit. Student creations don’t look like traditional books anymore. They look like interactive multimedia creations.

In our post — Growing authors: 15 ways to use Book Creator to publish student writing — we share our favorite ways to encourage student writing with Book Creator AND our favorite Book Creator features.

🗄 TEMPLATE 🗄

📺 Make a Family Feud review game

Survey says … this review game will be a hit with your students — or your staff during professional development!

This Family Feud template includes …

  • A pre-made Slides/PowerPoint template with 10 questions (plus the ability to make more)

  • Theme music in the title slide

  • A suggestion for a free buzzer tool (to have contestants buzz in)

  • A suggestion for sound effects to play during the game

  • Game show host cards

Our post tells you how to set it all up — and provides links to the templates.

😄 Smile of the day

Yep. Pretty accurate. 🎯

h/t Bored Teachers on Facebook

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

  1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

  2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

  3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Choose the best fit for you ...

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.