Writing for an audience provides students with a purpose for writing and an incentive for rewriting and editing to a high standard.
Here are some easy ideas to implement which are a little different:
Create a bookmark:
Poems, summaries and mini-stories lend themselves to this publishing format. The finished bookmarks can be laminated and then left in the school or local library for people to take, read and use.
Open-Mic event:
Partner with a local café to provide a venue for students to share their writing. You could even make it into a fundraiser!
Write reviews:
Partner with a local supermarket, café or restaurant and display students’ written descriptions of the different products.
Back of toilet doors:
Laminate students’ finished piece of writing and organise with local venues, councils or the school to display on the back of toilet doors.
Send a card:
Students write their final compositions inside a blank commercially produced card and then send them to an elderly people’s home.
Waiting room reading:
Place students’ writing in a display folder and liaise with the local dentist, doctor, hairdresser or other businesses where you often have to wait to leave the folder in their waiting area.
Video production:
Video students reading their written composition or record it as a podcast.
Tiny tastings:
Work on the premise that quality is better than quantity. Students choose just their best sentence and this is the sentence that is shared – at an assembly, at a parent/grandparents’ day, with another class, etc.
Other ideas:
• Class newspaper
• Enter writing competitions
• Pen Pals or exchanging written compositions with another class
• Class blog or other types of social media
• Create an e-book (e.g., Storybird)
• Reviews of books, products, etc. on online forums