Here's an idea that you might want to try that's a neat way to get your kids writing fiction and non-fiction. Many classrooms choose a student of the week. If you do this, try taking the time to interview him/her as a class. Seat the child in a special chair, ask him questions about his likes/dislikes, and jot the answers down on a chart. For instance:

The Class Asks:
Do you have any pets?
What do you like to do after school?
What's your favorite place to eat?
What's your favorite color?
What place would you like to visit?

Teacher Writes on Chart:
Muffy (dog), Chance (cat)
ride bike, soccer practice
McDonalds
purple
Disney World

etc...

After the chart is complete, the teacher and class can write a story together on chart paper about the student, using some (it doesn't have to use ALL) information from the chart. The story should have characters, a setting, a problem and a solution. For instance, using the above information, the class could dictate a story to the teacher about the student (let's call him John) and the day he was riding his bike after soccer practice and he suddenly noticed that his dog, Muffy, had turned purple. Or if you wanted realistic fiction, it could be about the time John was at Disney World with his family and he got lost, and he only found them once he went to the McDonalds. The combinations of possible stories are practically endless, especially if you don't mind some really silly stories.

Another option is to have your students each write a story for the student using the chart. It would be good to model this for them several times by doing group stories first. The stories can then be edited by peer groups (you can purposely set these up so each editing group contains a "high" student) and compiled into a class book for the student.

Notice that the chart does not contain complete sentences. This is on purpose. Some kids may have difficulty creating a fiction story using the chart. In this case, it would be good to give kids the option of writing biographies also. They must write the information on the chart in complete sentences, and it's good to practice varying sentence complexity too, so that you don't end up with every sentence beginning: "John's favorite ____ is....".

Writing stories together on chart paper as a group is called "shared writing" and is a great way to model many good writing behaviors. I remember one of my students being so excited and proud of himself when he said, "Mrs. Wall, I did what you do when you write a story - I got confused and so I went back and reread it to get back on track!" I wasn't even purposely modeling that particular strategy, but Gordon had picked it up. I've also been known to purposely put grammatical or punctuation mistakes in the story to be sure there's something for us to edit after we've completed the story.

Every once in a while I had the kids put their final drafts into a story writing program such as Storybook Weaver, where they can illustrate it using the computer. These make nice books for the star student. Incidentally, if your class has penpals you could try this activity with them, where each of your students sends their penpal a survey asking them questions, and then uses the answers to create a story with the penpal as the main character. Just another idea.

Heather Wall

"For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What
a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid pieces of paper unfolds
world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet you or excite
you. " - Anne Lamott