Students also select their best essays and include them. I allow students who enjoy essay writing more than writing poetry to include an extra essay instead of two of the optional poems. To enhance their book, students include at least three illustrations. I tell the students that the illustrations may be computer generated, drawn by hand, or cut out of magazines. This is a writing assignment not an art lesson, but their book still needs to look good, or people will be hesitant to read it.
Students decide how to arrange their poems, art, and essays to create the best effect.
I provide students with a body of work including these explanations from which they can pull this information. If a student has more than one poem in a particular style, he does not need to provide a repeated explanation of what makes it that type of poem. He only labels it what type of poem it is. For the last two years every student I teach has had work accepted for publication, so students are usually very proud of this page. The publication page is at the back of the book on the same sheet of paper as the parents' signature of authenticity attesting to the fact that all of the work is the child's own work and that these poems or stories were accepted for publication in the magazines listed.