The Drog's Rationale for the Thought Letter on the "Ice Storm"

How the directions for the reading of, and Thought Letter response to, "What Happened During the Ice Storm," demonstrates Write-to-Learn principles, as described in Wini Wood's "Roadmap to a Good Write-to-Learn Assignment."

1. Preparation: the students will have the book, Writing about Literature, and the short story in the form of a handout, and a separate notebook to use as a Reading/Writing journal.

2. Clear Purpose and Outcomes: the purpose of the assignment is that it is a lead-up to doing a formal analysis and interpretation of a short story, self-selected from The Best American Short Stories, 1997-2006. This is one of their major essays for College Writing I. This writing project also leads to the next major writing project -- a creative personal narrative.
3. An interesting assignment: "What Happened During the Ice Storm," is an excellent model for students to analyze to see how a short story uses descriptive and narrative techniques in creating a memorable fictional event in just 600 words of text. The assignment requires the students to apply principles of literary analysis to a model text. It also requires the students to follow directions for a written assignment, post their work on WebCT, and read and respond to the ideas of their peers. Thus, there are a variety of logical, manageable tasks, that require critical thinking (analysis, synthesis, and interpretation.

4. Clear directions for submission: directions for each of the subtasks are clear; reading, annotating, drafting, posting, and reflecting on peer's Thought Letters.

5. Follow-up: A way for students to share and/or present their work: the written work will be posted in under a discussion topic on WebCT, and responses will posted similarly.

6. Assessment: students will have forehand knowledge of the assessment of
Thought Letters, individually, and as a factor in their overall course grade.