Incorporating Literacy

I gave a "Little Red Riding Hood" assignment this term that has caused me some concern. For this assignment, I passed out a printed version of the tale for the class to read aloud. The print out ended at point where Little Red was walking down the path, alone, to her grandmother's house until she heard "Who goes there?" From this point, students had to create their own ending of the assignment, and they were strongly encouraged to be as creative as possible by not following the traditional story line. I was shocked to see how they struggled at first, but eventually excited as I watched them smile and laugh while they developed an ending. As each class progressed, I became increasingly pleased with the success of the assignment. At the end of the period, volunteers were asked to read their endings - they were excellent.

This assignment was fun and gave students the opportunity to think creatively and independently, which is apparently rarely required of them.

When I read the individual endings to assign points, I was astonished at the poor grammar, punctuation, spelling, syntax, etc. within the papers. The errors were gross. Some were simple and would have likely been corrected if students had re-read their papers; however, some of the errors were so profound, individual student abilities became questionable. The purpose of the assignment was to engage students' creative thinking skills, and I was torn when I graded their papers. I was afraid correcting all of the errors would discourage students from attempting a similar assignment again. However, I believe it is our duty as educators, regardless our content area, to provide effective feedback whenever possible. What would some of you do in this situation?