My daughter wrote and published a book....how do I record?

[momschicklets]

My daughter wrote, photographed and published a cookbook that now sells on Amazon.  She worked probably 10 to 20 hours a week to accomplish this and I want to give her transcript credit, but I have no idea how.  Can anyone help?  I'm not sure if it falls under English, or creative writing, or composition, or something else entirely??  I feel like it stands on its own as a class but I need some suggestions.  :crying:

[regentrude]

I would count this as an extracurricular.

[momschicklets]

So you would not put it anywhere on the transcript? Seems like a lot of writing to not "count" per se.  Thank you for your perspective!  This is my first graduate so I'm fumbling a bit...

[FloridaLisa]

Does she need the high school Language Arts credits? You could count the hours and give her credit.  My son also wrote 2 books in high school. He published one and we used it as an extracurricular.  If it was a huge, path-changing project for her, she should consider highlighting it as an extracurricular passion and writing about it in her admissions essays. Counted as credit, it may look like the project was required.  As an extracurricular, you can show that it was self-directed (if it was).  

 

Lisa

[momschicklets]

FloridaLisa....excellent suggestion!  She does not actually need an English credit as she already has one, and I love the idea of showing it was self-directed and therefore an extracurricular.  Thank you both...that helped a lot.

[regentrude]

So you would not put it anywhere on the transcript? Seems like a lot of writing to not "count" per se.

 

It does "count". Colleges want to see extracurriculars that are unique, that the student is passionate about, and to which the student devoted a significant amount of time . She will have an opportunity to elaborate on the specifics of the extracurricular in the application. IMO, this special achievement will stand out much more if it is not simply listed among the English courses, but rather as an extracurricular activity the student chose to do.

 

 

[momschicklets]

regentrude, I hadn't thought of it that way so that comment is very helpful.  I've decided to go ahead and highlight the years of work on her book as a student-led project that she initiated and had the passion to follow through with.  Thank you again for the guidance. 

[merylvdm]

I agree with the advice given above. I have had 3 go off to college now and while none of them wrote a book, they all had things they had spent time on that needed to be highlighted. There were a few ways of doing this

 

1. They can mention it in their college essays. Most colleges have many small essays students have to write and the trick is to use different things to focus on in each so that a student can show who they are.

 

2. Many colleges my kids applied to asked for a supplement from homeschool parents. It was a pain as it created work for me BUT it gave me a chance to show that what we had done had gone above and beyond a typical high school education. And I could include things I wanted to highlight in it.

 

3. The recommendation letters. You will be asking people who know her well to write these and I assume some or all of them will know about the book. Ask them to include it in their letter (I got my kids to create a google doc listing all their accomplishments and they told the people writing their letters what they wanted them to focus on so there wasn't too much overlap)

 

And kudus to her for writing a book!! 

[Jenny in Florida]

I had to make a similar decision about dance for my son. He danced more hours each week for the three years he did high school. In his final year, he was spending 20-ish hours a week at the studio taking class, rehearsing for competitions, assisting with and teaching classes, etc. At first, it felt wrong not to "count" all of that work in some formal, academic way. 

 

I ended up deciding to go with the approach advocated by regentrude and merylvdm. We tracked the hours he spent dancing and teaching and all of the awards he won along the way. We created a "brag sheet" that collected all of his accomplishments in dance and other extracurriculars in one place. It made it easier to fill out those sections on applications and gave him a source to draw from when he wanted to give his recommenders information to help them write their letters. In his case, he had recommenders who knew his dance talents and commitment very well but didn't know much about his academic accomplishments and teachers for his online courses who knew his school smarts but weren't familiar with the extent of his extras. Having all of the facts and figures handy in an organized format made it a breeze to create a "fact sheet" to give to all of the recommenders for their reference.

 

He also wrote about dance in his application essays. 

[daijobu]

I for one would love to see the Amazon listing for this book.  How wonderful for your dd!  Please share a link to the book.  

[Catwoman]

I'd like to see her book, too! I second the request to post a link. :)