This is a menu created with the help of students. It is a menu listing of many different ways to meet my language arts monthly homework requirement. Students prepare a "meal" for me, their food critic. They can choose to present me with many different combinations, for example: an appetizer, entree, and dessert, 2 appetizers and an entree, an entree and two desserts, etc. The different parts of the meal are categorized by level of difficulty as well as content. For example, comics, songs and poetry are pieces of writing that take up approximately a half to a whole page of typing, therefore they are classified as desserts, based on their length and literary merit. A letter, for example, is a more academic piece of writing, but it is still short, generally less than a page. It would be classified as an appetizer. The metaphor of the students' "restaurant" is extended even further. The cost of their meal is the grade that they receive for their piece (we use a 1-4 system) and they are reminded that the "food" they present to the food critic must be their best quality. If it is not long enough, full of grammatical errors, or does not contain enough information it is considered undercooked and gets sent back to the kitchen. Likewise, if the writing contains inappropriate language or too much graphic details, it is considered food poisoning, as it would make the food critic "sick." The kids really love the freedom of choice in what they turn into me every month and all of the menu items are high interest ways to write. Work quality has greatly improved with this homework policy in place.

Language Arts Menu by Sarah Wyman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.