Each week, in our class, we undertake a 100 writing word challenge. Creating short pieces of regular creative writing has several purposes. It gives us an opportunity to build a bank of story ideas that we can draw on when we get stuck and a chance to improve and redraft our work regularly. For students who are reluctant writers, this challenge is attainable and builds up stamina for writing. For the more accomplished writers in the class, we target specific skills to build on when writing their challenge.

This challenge also gives us an opportunity to learn to give constructive and targeted feedback to others. Rather than ‘I really like your story’, we use this activity to learn to identify areas for improvement as well as aspects of writing that are fantastic. Identifying these areas in other people’s writing helps students to improve their own  writing.

We invite you to comment and give feedback when you see these tasks appear on our blog. Feedback is a fantastic and important part of us improving our learning.

If your class would like to participate in this challenge, check out their website at 100wc.net