Introduction

Have you ever thought about becoming an author? Well, if you have ever written a story, you are one! First, you have to know the basics parts of a story and how to organize and plan each part.  Being a writer usually brings out the creativity in us. Each character is like a little bit of the author, people and experiences we have gone through creep into our writing. In this WebQuest you will learn how to go through the writing process, create a story and become an author!

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• You have the task of creating a story.  The teams will research vital information on story writing and decide on various aspects of the story. Then after the final version of the story is written, it will be ready to be published.
  

OR:

• Research vital information in story writing.
• Put team information together
  
• Put finalized copy (version) into print on paper or computer to be "Published".
  

There is a lot of work that goes into becoming a good author.  Research and thought must go into each writing piece you work on. 

• Break into groups with 6 or more members. Each group will break into teams of 2 or more to do research on the different forms of writing and the writing process.
  

• Learn what the basic parts of a story are and decide how to organize each.
• Review the Secrets to Good Story Writing and The Five Step Writing Process as a guideline.
• Research sites for story writing (provided).
• Decide on what kind of story you want to write.  
• With teacher permission, groups may be formed to write different kinds of stories if there are enough members to do the research.
   

Group Instructions:

• Review the internet sites provided to research the componets of writing a story. After all the research is done, the teams need to do the following:
  

• Everyone will need to look at whether they want to write a fiction or non-fiction story.
  
• Then teams need to decide on a play or short story type of writing.
• Decide on which members will work on each area in the small group sections below:
  
• Small groups will develop
  •  the characters
    
  • the plot
    
  • the setting
    
  •  narrative voice and point of view the story is written in.
    
• When all the parts of the story have been developed, the teams will combine to write the story.
  
• A team leader should be picked to oversee that all team member's ideas are fairly considered as the story evolves.
  
• All the team members will return together to make final decisions on any changes in the storyline and the final copy is made.
• Worksheet page provided to keep track of all work accomplished by team members for each category. These include the five steps in the writing process, and the parts of a story that have to be devloped.  Team participation and  individual team member participation should be noted in the comment section.
  

• There will need to be a teams for each of the following areas:
  • Small group work on story parts (character development, setting, plot, and narrative voice) with 2 or more in each category.

Editing and Proofreading- Check for errors in grammer, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Make changes as needed.

• Rewrite story. Proofread again before final copy is written. 
• Final hard copy will be given to the teacher for publishing.

This will be in paper form. If the students want to publish their story on the Internet, a copy of the story should be done in a Word document and saved on the computer.

Evaluation Rubric:
Each objective is worth 5 points.A total of 20 points is an A.

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Conclusion

    You have completed your group story and it is ready to be pubished. Great job! I congratulate all the team members. I hope you have all learned how to work together and seen the importance of working as a team to research and put together a story. You can see that writing a creative story is not an easy task and takes a lot research and preparation to make it believable.

    Hopefully this experience has helped you become a better writer Maybe it has even given you an aspiration to become an author. You can become an author whenever you want to have your stories, poems, or other written works displayed in a public setting like the school, in the mall shows, at home, or even on the Internet.  Maybe we will be surfing the Internet and see your story on a school site or even your own personal Web site. Be sure to be careful about not giving out any personal information on the Internet site.

Good luck!!!

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