The goal of this class for teens and preteens is to strengthen their academic writing skills through a mixture of fun and serious projects. This four-week class will incorporate writing, design, research, and critical thinking as students work to create two projects based in descriptive and persuasive writing. 

Classes will focus on content, grammar, and style. Through the editing process, students will revise their writing to eliminate errors and incorporate requirements such as variety in sentence openers, strong verbs, vivid adjectives, and various sentence styles. 

Students should have access to canva, Google slides, or another design program or app for the first project. 

Project 1 (weeks 1-2): Create a new planetary system. The point of this project is to draw out strong descriptive elements in writing and to include graphs, charts, tables, or other means of displaying information. The project calls for students to creatively describe a new system of planets. The final project, presented in canva or a similar program, will have requirements for numbers of paragraphs and charts. Students will receive a checklist to aid them in their design. 

Project 2 (weeks 3-4): Week 3 will focus on the elements of persuasion (logos, ethos, pathos) as students write a humorous complaint letter (ie, a letter to a neighbor complaining about their noisy chickens). This will set the stage for the final project by teaching them the elements of letter-writing and persuasive writing. In week 4, they will compose a letter to themselves in response to their original complaint. The actual project is for them to identify an issue in their community, state, province, or country, and write a persuasive letter identifying a problem and a solution. This will also involve students researching the issue and proper contacts. 

A typical class will start with a writing warm-up, followed by an introduction of that week’s topic. All instruction is presented in an engaging, easy-to-follow format that invites student participation orally and through the chat system. 

After every class, students are encouraged to submit their rough drafts for feedback and their final projects for a detailed instructor evaluation.