Essay Writing: Five Prompts

This assignment builds on the NPR Podcast Challenge we started in early January:

NPR Student Podcast Challenge

You can continue to use the space to complete the challenge, and I’ll make that an ongoing option through the end of March. There is an opportunity here to do more than just a podcast, though. The five prompts provided by NPR could be used for discussion and essay-writing, too.

First, those prompts again:

Tell us a story about your school or community: about something that happened there — recently or in the past — that your audience should know about.

What is a moment in history that all students should learn about?

Show us both sides of a debate about an issue that’s important to you.

What do you want to change about the world? What’s a big change that students today will make in the future?

Explain something to us that kids understand and grown-ups don’t.

Answering these five questions has given you the subject and approach, at least, for five different essays. We will use the writing process(es) outlined here:

The Writing Process

Your assignment is simple: Choose a prompt, and then write an essay in response to it.

You can use your peers for inspiration, by the way, since you can load the Google Form you completed, click on “See previous responses,” and read hundreds of potential approaches:

You have to add your own answers first, of course. If you’ve done that, you now have access to the anonymous suggestions of your peers.

Follow any further directions on Google Classroom, and ask questions below.

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2 Comments

  1. I highly recommend every student read the google form responses to the NPR questions. They really helped me better understand the way to answer the questions in a complete and structured form. Also, it was fun to reminisce in the first question.

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