Letters to Zork: A WBT Classroom is a Writing Classroom

I made a huge mistake last year: We did not write every day. When I went to the National Conference last June in Pineville, LA, Coach B suggested having students write to Zork -- so now, we do!

This year, my classroom writes to Zork, an alien from another planet who knows nothing about Science. My students write Zork to explain concepts as they learn them. 

At first, I modeled a note so they would understand my expectation. Now, I give them sentence stems to complete. For example:

Dear Zork,

Today, I learned about thermal energy. Thermal energy is ... that is made by...

I learned that thermal energy always travels in one direction. It always moves...

One example of thermal energy traveling in one direction is...

Your friend,

We don't write to Zork every day. Sometimes we write a reflection; sometimes we write concepts on a foldable. Yet, after a few days, I always hear a student ask, "Can we write to Zork today?"

A student asking to write? sigh...Teacher Heaven. Thanks WBT.