New Best Friends

In the spirit of participatory culture, we created this book as a whole group. During the fall of 2010 we wrote the story. We did so corroboratively by doing a ‘write-along’. Some may know this as ‘whisper down the lane’. All told, twenty two students wrote each part of the story. Minor edits were made as a group for continuity, but the spirit of the group process remains. After we wrote the story and made our initial edits, each student was randomly assigned a two page spread to illustrate. Students created thumbnail sketches and researched imagery for their plan. Rough sketches led to digital scans and finally a digital vector rendering in drawing software called Adobe Illustrator. Many students combined both traditional media (pencil and paper) along with digital tools and scans.