My girlfriend Jen aids with 3rd and 4th grade classes at a Connecticut School. At about this time of year she must participate in the miserable administration of standardized testing.
One part of Connecticut’s standardized testing methods are writing prompts. The students are given a brief scenario and are then encouraged to write per this prompt for 45 minutes. The younger students are given exciting fictional prompts like “Your friend gives you a pair of socks that will turn you into whomever you want when you put them on. Tell us what happens next!”
Older students are given really boring prompts like “Make an argument for or against extending the school year.”
No thanks on that last one.
All this led me to an idea: I thought it might be a fun exercise to give a MikeDiDonato.com writing prompt. I’ll have Jen pull out an exciting 3rd grade writing prompt from some past year and then I will post it. I encourage each of you to write for 45 minutes about this topic and submit it to me. I will post all submissions. The only rule is that you can only spend 45 minutes on your creative writing attempt.
I will do it for sure, and hopefully you will too! Let me know if you’d like to participate. I’ll probably have this happen next week some time.
