Introduction

== =How the Stay-Afters Began= By Carolyn Hedgecock For years my students have asked if we could write a book and for years I always replied, “We’ll see.” This year things have been different because we’ve had three very inspiring authors visit our school. First, we had Monte and Claire Montgomery, the authors of __Hubert Invents the Wheel__ ; a week later Obert Skye, the author of the __Leven Thumps__ series, also came and hosted a fund raiser for us at Barnes and Noble. After meeting these authors we were inspired. Monte and Claire taught us the value of never giving up. They sent out manuscripts to over sixty different publishers before they finally got an acceptance letter. __Hubert Invents the Wheel__ won the Bluebonnet Award. We believe they will continue striving until it becomes a movie. Obert Skye taught us to be our best, use our imagination, and believe anything is possible. He too went on a long journey to have his book published. Now, he has multiple books that are being made into movies. We became even more passionate about our writing after these author visits. Around the end of October, we began writing scary stories. There was a story in Allan Zulio’s __Haunted Schools…True Ghost Stories__ called “The Stay-Behind.” Students were given the first and last page of the story and asked to write what happened in the middle. A student named Dontavious stayed after school and began thinking up a story about a bunch of school kids that had a party in a haunted mansion that was about to be torn down. Inside the haunted mansion was an old-maid school teacher that had some lessons to teach to some disrespectful pranksters. Dontavious made himself the star. As his imagination grew, so did our story. I shared what he wrote with my classes and then asked students what they wanted to happen next. Each person wrote their ideas and before we knew it we had the first three chapters. We brain-stormed the different types of kids you would find in any school. We decided that every school needed a true nerd. The character of Doyle Watters evolved. Students wanted him to carry his pens in a pen guard, be lactose intolerant, pull his pants up way too high, wear his belt way too tight, and so on. For every nerd, there has to be a bully and so we invented Lanna Jo, the biggest, baddest girl in school. But the ironic part is that she is Doyle’s protector and defender because they are an unlikely pair and both outside the social loop. There are two ex-football stars, Taiwan and Dontavious who are always on the look out for trouble. Doyle makes an easy target but later he becomes the hero. The popular girls, Kaitlyn and Whitney are shallow and superficial. We had fun creating a rap about them using our SAT words from Scope magazine. To develop the character of Doyle we wrote diamantes. We wrote and sang original songs to show Lanna Jo’s true worth and need for friends. __Laying the Foundation__, our curriculum guide for Birdville’s Advanced and Gifted program, served as our writing and grammar guide to incorporate images and details and well as a reminder to notice syntax and diction. We used it to provide evidence for character traits that were both inferred and implicitly stated. The vision for our book broadened when Dr. Waddell, the superintendent of Birdville I.S.D., challenged us to make the __Stay-Afters__ a virtual book. We began adding movies, montages, a pixel haunted house, youtubes, and an interactive wiki page. Our classroom is no longer just an ELA classroom but a, writing, editing, filming, and videoing warehouse. Most of what we do is connected back to __The Stay-Afters__. The book has become a part of us and we have become part of it. The universal theme of our book is that everyone has value and worth. You can’t judge a person by their exterior because if you do then you might miss out on wonderful friendships. Our book is still a work in progress and nobody exactly knows what will happen next, but we’d like to extend an invitation to you so you can join the world of __The Stay-Afters__. Come and stay a while and give us your suggestions as to what should happen next.