about AUTHORABLE
Founded in 2020 by educator and speech-language pathologist Susie Harder, M.A., CCC-SLP, Authorable is a national school-based book-publishing program for K-6th grade students where students vote to help make and publish a professionally-illustrated children's book to benefit their community. Classrooms are invited to contribute their ideas to the book as it’s created in real time, with direct contact to updates from the author, illustrator, and editor. The book publishing team communicates directly with students through video messages, allowing kids to see behind the scenes of the book publishing process. All themes and materials are designed to strengthen positive character traits, create a unique bond with literacy, and build student involvement in the community.
Authorable’s Founder
Susie Harder, M.A., CCC-SLP is the founder of Authorable. An author, Speech-Language Pathologist, and the Founder & Director of Central Valley Stuttering Center, Susie is a clinical speech-language pathologist who dedicates her passion to helping kids feel heard and seen. She works with children 2-18 years old in the school-setting and in private practice. Susie loves shifting challenging situations into confidence-building opportunities for kids. To help offset the negative effects of COVID-19, Susie utilized her child development skills to support children in a different way this year.
AUTHORABLE SCHOOLS
Authorable serves a diverse cohort of students, with varying experiences, interests and access to resources. Authorable’s engaging and exciting book-publishing program was created to increase student engagement in reading and writing and build a forever bond with literacy. The author gathers student opinions in real time to make decisions for the book. Thanks to the easy-to-implement classroom-ready format, Authorable can be integrated into a number of school programs without any teacher prep required. Authorable reclaims a sense of fun and collaboration that has been hard to capture during distance learning and pandemic-related challenges. Authorable loves to partner with innovative schools and principals who recognize the value of an multidimensional program that offers benefits not just through literacy activities, but also through social-emotional learning opportunities, philanthropic and community giving, and leadership development. 100% of students surveyed from the Spring 2020 book: “I want to help make the next book!”
Commitment to Diversity
Authorable pursues a broad and inclusive approach to the dimensions of its participant population. Authorable aspires to design and deliver programs that are affordable, accessible, and highly useful to a broad spectrum of students across cities, states, and even continents, serving their communities no matter their economic and cultural backgrounds.
Programs and Courses
Teachers Get:
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Classroom-ready voting access (as quick as 15 total minutes of class time per book)
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Printable book-themed classroom worksheets and activities (available for each grade-level)
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Behind-the-scenes videos from the author
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Built-in social-emotional classroom discussions for healthy transitions back to school this year
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“Much quicker and simpler than I thought!”
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“My students absolutely loved this, especially the voting.”
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“This instantly brings a positive, energy to this school year.”
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Whether Authorable is a grade-level project or a school-wide project for you, each teacher (including SPED) is given access to login for voting and all available materials.
What students are loving:
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Voting to choose what goes into the book
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Having their own book signing event
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Knowing their school mascot goes into the book!
Intentionally Designed to:
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Offer educators support for closing the learning gap
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Increase student engagement and motivation
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Empower students by creating a lifelong bond with literacy
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Strengthen community and school spirit
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Promote compassion and helping others
FALL 2021 Book:
The adventure-based storyline for our Fall 2021 book is designed to naturally elicit conversations about isolation, resiliency, problem-solving, compassion, grit, and helping the community. Runs September-December.
Spring 2022 Book:
Theme to-be-developed by students after our Fall book is complete. Runs February-May.
Authorable School Registration
Limited registration. Accepting 500 innovative schools as part of our 2021-2022 Cohort. *Note: Only schools with memberships will be able to access voting, the teacher portal, and discounted book ordering.
Opportunity for students to raise: $3,000-$5,000
Note: Not all grade-levels or classrooms are required to participate. We’d be happy to welcome anyone from your team who wants to join us— even 15 minutes total for voting in September. Based on the program design, schools memberships allow school-wide access and separate packages are not available per classroom or grade-level.
Authorable Community Commitment
Authorable empowers students and their schools to give back to their communities through its organized student-led book signing events to celebrate the book’s publication.
Because this program was designed by educators who are truly aiming to engage students and support social-emotional learning, this program is guaranteed to pay for itself.
With the Authorable membership, schools have access to ordering books directly from the printing press (wholesale cost, no publishing fees). With our help to organize a student-led book signing event, your school can use 100% of the book proceeds to fund a local community-action project on behalf of the students!