Short Story Writing Assignment

Give your story a good ending.

writing4 So far in this lesson, you've seen an example of a good story ending, and you've looked at your story's ending to see how it matches up. Before sending your short story draft to your teacher, take some time to add to or change its conclusion so that it does everything it should.

When you feel that your first draft includes all of your best ideas, send it to your teacher. Then, don't look back at your story for a few days. When you do come back to it, you will be able to look at it more objectively. In other words, you'll be able to look at your story as a reader.

You will be graded with the following rubric:

Literary Element	Exceptional 5 points	Good 3 points	Needs Work 1 point
Problem/ Conflict	Your story gives characters an interesting problem to solve.	Your story includes a problem that characters must solve.	Your story does not have a problem for characters to solve.
Plot	The events in your story resolve conflicts in a surprising way.	The events in your story resolve the problem or conflict.	The events in your story do not resolve the story's conflicts.
Setting	You use lots of sensory details to create your story's setting.	Your story's setting is clear and includes sensory details.	Your story's setting is unclear, or you don't use sensory details.
Characterization	Your story has plenty of indirect characterization, including dialogue.	You use direct and indirect characterization in your story.	Your story's characters, while clear, need to be better characterized.
Point of View	Your story helps readers understand the narrator's point of view.	The details in your story make sense given your story's point of view.	Your story's point of view isn't clear, or changes sometimes.
Theme	Your story's conclusion surprises readers and suggests a theme.	Your story has a conclusion that suggests a theme.	Your story does not have a conclusion.
Style	Your story's sentences help readers get into the story.	Your story's sentences make it easy for readers to follow what happens.	Your story has some sentence fragments that make it hard to read.
Process	You used every stage of the writing process to improve your draft.	You completed every stage of the writing process.	You did not complete one or more stages of the writing process.