Letters to the Editor

I love authentic purposes for writing.  When my students are enthusiastic and motivated about a writing topic, they produce higher quality writing.

This week, I read an article on a local new site that announced our local mall was introducing new policies as of April 1st.  Children 12 and under must now be supervised by a parent at all times while in the mall and that during school hours students 17 and under are only allowed in the mall during lunch hour unless accompanied by an adult.  There are many reasons for these new policies, and I can see both sides of the issue - but I teach 10-12 year old, and I knew they would not be happy about this new loss of freedom.

We had a great debate and discussion about the issues surrounding the new policies and my students immediately wanted to do something - what they actually wanted to do was pass a piece of loose leaf paper around my class and call it a petition - thereby disrupting my lessons all day...but I directed them to go the letter writing route.  So, we are writing letters to the editor, and to the mall manager and we will wait and see what kind of response we receive.  I would be thrilled if one of my students (or more) got 'published' in the newspaper.