Writing Cinderella Stories
This writing exercise is based loosely on the story,Cinderella. The idea is that the Main Character lives with a "Bad" Family. One day, an announcement gives hope that the Main Character may have a chance at a better life. The Main Character must overcome the resistance of the Bad family, get to whatever special event has been announced and be successful.

To begin, each students creates their own planning sheet. Here they make basic decisions about the characters, settings and primary events in the story. Once their plans are complete, we begin writing the rough drafts. The special pages I provide allow them to look at the functions of various paragraphs in the story. We do not try to write the story all at once, but instead look at the parts of the sequence that make the story work.