Ideas for Creating Books

• Your group could consider creating a book from the material you have researched.
• Decide on the topic and focus of the book. You may not be able to use all the information you have collected; select information that would be the most interesting for readers in your community. For example, it could be a small booklet on how to make one tool or prepare skins. Or it could be a larger book on the whole process of making kamiik – from preparing the skins to the finished pair of kamiik. Or it could be a collection of life stories, family or community history.
• Decide who will write each section of the book. Will you write in pairs, small groups or as individuals?
• Decide if you want to add photographs or graphics. The facilitator teaches mini-lessons on the writing process, writing non-fiction, grammar, syllabic keyboarding and any other topics as they come up during the progress of the work.
• Work through the steps of making notes and writing various drafts of the book, using peer editing and consultation to get feedback on your work.
• Type the final drafts on the computer, adding scanned or digital photographs and graphics if you want.
• Put the sections together in booklet form: make a cover; give credit to the authors and the people they interviewed. Inside the front cover of the book, write the date and place that the book was created. Add dedications to special people if you want.
• The book can be used as reading material for your literacy group and future literacy groups and schools.

For ideas on different ways to make books, see the NWT Literacy Council web site: www.nwt.literacy.ca. Click on Family Literacy, then on How to Kits, then on Bookmaking.