Students can fill out a prewriting short story form to help them with their brainstorming. Allow students to begin writing their first draft. Place students in groups again and instruct them to exchange stories. Give students time to edit and revise their work and prepare it for submission. Decide on a method for the entire class to judge the short stories.
Students return to desk and on a sheet of paper they rate the stories.
After the top stories have been selected, decide what makes the stories so successful. Assist students in submitting their short stories to writing contests online. The students visit the Wacky Web Tales site and follow the online directions to create a story by plugging in random words according to the parts of speech. In addition, students can create their own Wacky Web Tale and submit it to the Wacky Web Tale site. Remember, before beginning this activity, review the parts of speech with your students.