STAR-W Writing Prompts

 

Teachers at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. School Complex in Atlantic City have created hundreds of online writing prompts and knowledge hunts that allow students to type information online and submit their work to the teacher via e-mail with a simple click of a button.

Here's a link that will give you access to about fifty activities they created this summer.

One first year teacher who had to leave the because of dropping enrollment took her STAR-W portfolio on the road and got a job with her first interview.  She then went on to create about forty activities for her new first grade class.

While these prompts work off of the STAR-W server and are not directly usable to others, it is now possible for you to copy these activities or make ones of our own using the STAR-W Writing Prompt Template and programs such as Microsoft Word or Appleworks.  You can then run the prompts off of any Internet enabled computer or post them to any web site.

The concept is very simple. All you have to do is download the template, open it in Word, replace the generic text, remove any prompt boxes you don't need, save it, post it, and use it!  There are a few details that you need to attend to and they can be found in the detailed instructions.

You can read the full story of the evolution of the STAR-W writing prompts, how you can set up a similar program on your school's server and more information about the STAR-W grant program by reading a from text that will be appearing in the NJAET Newsletter.