Place-based writing affords students an opportunity to write meaningfully about themselves, grounded in a place that they know. Place-based writing is versatile and can be additive--taking just a week or two within a semester of different projects--or transformative, if positioned as the theme for an entire course. If students can learn to write…

In this article, the author shares how she envisioned and created a writing assignment for a ninth-grade English course. The writing project is a class novel comprised of short stories, one written by each student. In the writing assignment, seniors compile their favorite writings from any class in any year of high school and write reflections…

Describes several assignments and activities that focus on writing for "real-world" purposes, including writing to pen pals, government agencies, and for children or the elderly. (MM)

Shows how a writing exercise requiring students to write to themselves five years into the future has a dramatic effect on them and helps them, perhaps for the first time, to think about their futures. (TB)