Inspiring Young Authors with Scholastic Keys

To encourage creative writing I gave my students several story prompts to choose from. After choosing one that interested them they would brainstorm ideas and then began to write their stories. If a computer was not available they would work in their journal until one was available for them to use. As they continued to work on their stories on the computer using Scholastic Keys they saved them in their own folder. When they were finished with their story and had listened to it using the text to speech reader they would then get another student to read or listen to their creation. As each student felt their work was ready for publication, they asked me to proof read it. After making any corrections necessary, they then choose a border for their page and inserted clip art or an original drawing using Max Paint. Students were so proud to see their work displayed in the hall. As old work was taken down to make space for new ones the old stories were spiral bound in book form and placed in the reading center.