Ways to Recycle Writing

I suspect many homeschoolers (like me) have files of old papers.  Stories written a few years ago or a few months ago, essay questions, reports, and simple research projects are hanging around waiting for something but what? To be recycled, of course!  These are not wasted computer memory space or piles of future kindling.  They are piles of possibilities.  Here are a few ways to recycle writing.

Editing practice: Pick an old piece with lots of spelling and grammar errors for a child to edit now that he or she has learned new skills.

Experimenting with the part of speech: Pick an short old story or essay and have the child change all the adjectives and/or adverbs to discover the transformation of the piece.

Writing Prompt: Choose an introductory paragraph of an old essay to be the starting point of a new essay.

Story development: Return a story that was written at younger age and have the child rewrite the story with a more developed story line.

Story reformation:  Allow the child to pick a story he or she really likes with the job of adding a new character to the story.

Writing Challenge:  Provide one child with something you or another child wrote with the task of writing something entirely new using the ideas or concepts.

Creating arguments: For an older child, provide an old piece which takes a stand on an issue and ask them to write a piece in response from a different perspective.