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Tuesday 27 june 2017, 200 word challenge tasks 2016/2017, 3 comments:.

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A 200 word challenge for student writers.

• November 24, 2020

I’ve had the pleasure of working with this company. All opinions are my own.  

Have you tried a writing challenge with your students?  I was so excited to have an opportunity to participate in a special word challenge with my friends at Adobe Education . It’s called a “ 200 Word Challenge ” and it’s the perfect format for student writers. In this blog post, I’ll take you through the challenge resources, share a link to the video where I participate in the challenge, and hopefully inspire you to tailor this to your own classroom.

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you know how much I love the Adobe Spark tools. Ben Forta and I even wrote a book called 40 Ways to Inject Creativity Into Your Classroom With Adobe Spark . This challenge isn’t one of our 40 activities, but I’m very excited to share it with you.  And don’t forget, I do have a free download, it’s a set of graphic organizers you can use with the Spark tools.

Let’s jump into the writing challenge!

Challenge for Student Writers

The 200 word student writing challenge takes a spin on a traditional writing prompt. Instead of asking students to respond to one question, it has an overarching theme. The theme is broken down into four sub, or smaller, questions. Students can respond with their answers to the questions using about 50 words each.

As you can see in the screenshot above, I answered the questions for my challenge on a Google document before jumping into Adobe Spark. Just like how you would create an example, or exemplar for your students, this is a great step to model. After students put in their responses to their questions, they may want to share with a partner for feedback.

The challenge I’m sharing here in this blog post isn’t grade level specific. So it provides a great opportunity for you to examine your English Language Arts goals, or connect with an ELA teacher who may have certain skills they are working on with your students, if you are teaching a different subject area. You might decide to pull in a checklist, or rubric, or simply include this challenge alongside specific mini lessons already on your calendar.

Sharing Student Writing

After students have created their document with responses to the questions, it’s time to head over to Adobe Spark Page . Spark Page is the website creation tool that allows students to create beautiful landing pages. As you can see in the screenshot below, I am sharing examples from an Adobe Spark Page website in my Chrome Web browser. You can also use Adobe Spark Page  on iOS ,. The app for iPads and iPhones is very user-friendly, and students can login with the same email they might use on a Web browser.

If you haven’t set up Adobe Spark for your school, you have two options. This page shares details on district level implementation as well as how teachers can set up their class if you are a G Suite school. 

Once students have opened up their Spark Page, they can build out their website from top to bottom. At the top of the screen there’s a space to add a title and header image.

Then the plus sign that follows as students scroll down the page allows them to combine text, images, links, and more. To get an idea of what this project looks like in action, check out this video recording of my session with Tanya Avrith and Dominic Traynor. We go through the steps together for creating a Spark Page with my example for the challenge.

200 Word Challenge 

Although you are welcome to come up with your own writing prompts and ideas, the team at Adobe Education and Wakelet have you covered. This page goes through lots of ideas for getting kids talking about big issues . As I mentioned above, you might only focus on specific goals you have for students in English Language Arts or integrate another content area.

I can’t wait to see what your students create! If you decide to share on social media, make sure to tag my account @classtechtips  as well as @adobeforedu. You can also add the hashtags #AdobeEduCreative and #WakeletWave for this challenge. This way students can connect with other kids in different parts of the world!

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Monica Burns

Dr. Monica Burns is a former classroom teacher, Author, Speaker, and Curriculum & EdTech Consultant. Visit her site ClassTechTips.com for more ideas on how to become a tech-savvy teacher.

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reading, writing and design

Do you do ‘200 word challenges’ in english lessons here’s what they’re for….

Lots of schools started doing 200-word challenges as a quick way to sharpen up GCSE students’ writing skills. I’ve noticed, in working as a tutor, however, that not all students know why they’re doing them. If that’s you, read on – this is what they can help you achieve.

• They help remind you to use features in your writing.
• They push you to start writing and get some ideas down, in proper sentences and paragraphs.
• They help you practise writing from a particular viewpoint, which you may not share, and/or about topics you might not care about.
• They help show you how quickly you can get some words on a page.
• Some also introduce you to new vocabulary, enabling you to use it in your writing.

All of these are important for success in the writing half of the two exams. The main reasons students get disappointing marks in these tasks are:

• not varying sentences, vocabulary or punctuation (so the 200-word challenges get you to do this)
• not using linguistic, rhetorical or structural features (see how your checklist helps you to remember to use some of these on purpose?)
• writing non-fiction texts that don’t ‘feel’ like the form set (i.e. a speech that doesn’t address the audience, a broadsheet article that is too formal, a leaflet with no headings – again see how the 200-word challenge steers you to use appropriate features?)

So, if you’ve been moaning about doing 200-word challenges, it may be time to embrace them as a useful tool to help you sharpen up your skills and close in on that better grade!

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Creative writing

Browse this rich collection of English teaching resources, teaching ideas, templates and creative writing lessons to develop students' descriptive writing, narrative writing and creative writing skills. You'll find compelling picture prompts, supportive word banks and carefully scaffolded resources to engage even the most reluctant of student writers.

There are fun and eclectic lesson ideas, downloadable worksheets and comprehensive PowerPoints for a range of exciting creative writing and short story tasks based on journeys, the senses, on sculpture, on the weather and even 'magical doors'!

Explore point of view, narrative structure and the features of a ‘good story’ as well as how to develop a main character with a range of creative writing tasks to hone students’ descriptive writing skills. You’ll also find resources on using metaphors and similes and varying sentence structure to make their writing more engaging.

Perfect for key stage 3 English classes and GCSE English Language learners. 

You might also like our non-fiction writing activities for KS3 English.

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Every day is a school day…

On our Weekly Writing Challenges 2017-18

I’ve written before about our Weekly Writing Challenges here which were inspired by Chris Curits (@Xris32). We love them so much that we now have year 10 doing them and we’re seeing a real improvement in the quality of our students’ written responses.

I thought I’d share this year’s Weekly Writing Challenges for year 7-10 which include a retrieval practice starter which tests students on the ambitious vocabulary they learn as part of their homework . Feel free to use or adapt. Google Drive folder here .

Week One: Describe this room from the perspective of a bee.

Week Two: Budget cuts mean one subject must be cut from the curriculum: pick a subject and write a letter to the minister for education arguing why it should or shouldn’t be cut.

Week Three: Miss Scarlet murdered Mr Black in the library with poisoned ink. Write the final scene of a detective story where this crime is explained.

Week Five: He was timid and moved with caution. Continue describing this character.

Week Six: What is the most important colour in the world and why? Write a persuasive speech.

Week Seven: Write the opening of a story that begins with this sentence: Last Friday began like any other day.

Week Eight: Write the text for a leaflet persuading people to visit Marwell Zoo to see their new animal.

Week Ten: ‘Spiders are our friends – if left alone, they will consume most of the insects in our homes’. Write a newspaper article arguing for or against this statement.

Week Eleven: Write a story that begins and ends with this sentence: Looking back, I didn’t mean to do it.

Week Twelve: Write a letter to a family member advising them on how to use social media effectively.

Week Thirteen: Write a description from the perspective of an aquatic creature inside an aquarium.

Week Fourteen: Write an essay for the following title: Christmas is the most wasteful time of the year.

Week Fifteen: Write a description as suggested by this image.

Week Sixteen: Write a short story in which a magician, a clown and a mime artist are trapped in a lift together.

Week Seventeen: Write a speech persuading parents that homework should be scrapped.

Week Eighteen: Write a description as suggested by this image.

Week Nineteen: Write a leaflet giving advice to teenagers about staying safe on the internet.

Week Twenty: Write a short story entitle ‘The arrival’.

Week Twenty-One: Write an article arguing for or against this statement.

Week Twenty-Two: Write a description as suggested by this image.

Week Twenty-Three: The most important play/novel/author to study in English is… Write this essay.

Week Twenty-Four: Describe a street at 6am, 3pm and 9pm.

Week Twenty-Five: Write the text for a leaflet persuading others to contribute to a charity of your choice.

Week Twenty-Six: Narrate an unusual day starting from the end of the day.

Week Twenty-Seven: Write a letter to a friend giving them advice about how to make up with someone they’ve fallen out with.

Week Twenty-Eight: Write a story about an unusual journey to school.

Week Twenty-Nine: Write an article for a newspaper arguing for or against this statement.

Week Thirty: Write a description as suggested by this image.

Week Thirty-One: Bringing my pet(s) to school would help me to achieve more. Write this essay.

Week Thirty-Two: Write a scary story set in a children’s soft play centre.

Week Thirty-Three: You are the manager of a sports team (any sport) and you are losing at half time. You have to deliver a speech which is good enough to motivate your team to go out and win the match.

Week Thirty-Four: Write a description from the perspective of one of these statues.

Week Thirty-Five: A cartoon character has died (you pick one). Write a speech for a school assembly commemorating them.

Week Thirty-Six: Write the story of Little Red Riding Hood from the perspective of the wolf.

Week Thirty-Seven: Write a letter to Wiltshire County Council persuading them to increase funding for activities for young people.

Week Thirty-Nine:

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15 comments.

How do I get these?

There’s a link in the post to the Google Drive.

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These are fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing. How do you use these in class? Do you always mark these pieces too? We’re looking at ways to reduce marking workload at the moment so looking for new ideas! Thanks again.

No we don’t mark everything students do. We regularly look at books and give feedback (see my feedback post). I think English teachers have avoided regular writing because of this very reason. Feedback is important but regular practise is key and our girls’ writing is really coming on.

In class we have 5 mins for the vocab test and then the teacher will talk through the challenge and model anything that needs modelling or show an example e.g. of anaphora. Students will then have 5 mins to plan and 25 mins to write a response. Following this there’s peer and/or self assessment before we share a couple with the class.

They are great! Thanks so much for sharing! Do you have them stick to the 200 word limit?

Hi Colin – thank you. We don’t give a word limit/target – we’d just rather they wrote something well crafted. We do set a time limit, though, of 5 minutes to plan and 25 minutes to write/proof.

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200 word challenge

200 Word Challenges – descriptive writing

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A selection of descriptive writing 200 word challenges.

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melissawells2605

Download info, june 30, 2020.

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Creative Writing Tasks for KS3 Students

Subject: Creative writing

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

7 March 2016

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