100 Word Challenge

As I was browsing the web looking up some interesting activities for Language Arts, I stumbled on the 100 Word Challenge.  Honestly, I wish I would have found this sooner!  It is an awesome way to get students to write.  Essentially, each week students are given a prompt or some sort from the 100 Word Challenge website (100wc.net).  This prompt can be a word, a group of words, a phrase or a picture.  The students are then challenged to create a piece of writing that must include this prompt in some manner.  The challenge is they are only allowed 100 words (plus the prompt word or words).     The prompt for this week, for example, is "out of the blue...".  Since this phrase is four words, the students' story should be 104 words.

The 100 Word Challenge is a world wide challenge.  Students work is posted to their blog which is a part of a class blog.  The post link is then uploaded to 100wc.net and it becomes visible for other challengers to view.  Students are encouraged to view each others post and comment.  This presents an excellent opportunity to teach and practice digital citizenship. 

We have recently started blogging in class.  Blogging has got the students excited about writing.  The first time they noticed that somebody from another country viewed their page, they were hooked.  As their teacher, I get just as excited to see their reactions.  The 100 Word Challenge seems like an excellent way to build on this.  Although their blogs will be used for other assignments, we look forward to getting started on the 100 Word Challenge.  We have not signed up as of yet.  We are still learning about blogging, but we have done our own class challenge.  Students have written a post and are currently commenting on each others work.  This will provide the practice and understanding they will need when we do begin the actual challenge.

This is our class blog and the links to students' blogs will be on here soon.  Stay tuned and visit often.  The students would love to hear your comments!