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Lost Link and Help

Somewhere in the blogsphere I stumbled across a link to "mr. Frodo" or something like that - an online site for teen poetry, essays, etc... but I lost it! If anyone out there has the link can you email it to me? I'd really, really appreciate it!

Also, I'm planning a new weekly assignment for my classes - simply having them write something to be turned in on Tuesdays. Genre is nos-specific, the point of which is to get them to enjoy writing, get some points and having something for their portfolios (many students have saved nothing all year long, despite my entries to do so, as well as providing a repository in the my room for these assignments). I want it to be open genre-wise so that the students can choose something they're good at or are at least captures their interest in the hopes of actually getting something turned in prior to June. The problem I'm having is coming up with a rubric. If there aren't some sort of ground rules the only readable things turned in will be plagiarized. So far I've come up with shows revision; shows effort - how I'm still not sure; use of literary elements (circling the particular element on rubric). Any ideas? Have a good all-purpose rubric? Anything would help!

Comments

Ms. M said…
I like the idea of giving them lots of freedom. I do think that you should give them something to go off of though like asyb said. Every week could be different. One week tell them which point of view to write from, another week have them end the story with a specific quote (ex.: "Boy, am I glad this day is over!"). This will help them get started and then they can totally choose what they want to write about within the guidelines. They may even be excited to find out what the writing scenario is each week.

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