Tool #7 Reaching Outside the Classroom

My students are beginning to find the fun in writing and I would like for them to continue growing in their enthusiasm and comfort level as they polish their ability to critique their own work. At this point, though, they are still not well skilled at analyzing writing with the insight of a writer. I want to use Google Docs to anonymously present a personal narrative or a sample of expository writing by a student in my class and see what feedback will be given by students in another fourth grade class. My class could critique a writing sample from the other class at the same time. This is an activity I see fitting into our writing plans in coordination with up-coming lessons on personal narrative. We could use it several times before the STAAR writing test in the spring.