Please,
Dear teachers . . .
I beg of you. Try this tomorrow, or the next day, or sometime . . .
A horizontal piece of paper. Give that to the kids and have them write 'a book.'
The book. A book. The words that went into books . . . 500 years of spreading info and upgrading the status-quo of the static brain. Keystone to community, standard-bearer for time well spent in solitude, 500 years as info source #1 and entertainment central. That's not a bad run.
As a frame, the frame of a book has cred. That's my point.
And a frame? You can imagine anything into a frame. A lesson. A writing.
Write a book every day or four days a week or on some kind of routine. The back cover can be the meta/blurb and the front the title/thesis/fun line. Spin this however works for your crew. Put 253 words or a paragraph or a drawing or five minutes (or fifteen) in the two inside pages.
Churn 'em out, these books, you and your class. 500 years: The idea, the sentence, pounded by key of zinc, pressed to paper with pen or ink.
Let not the screen convince you a thing is made of pixels, however space age the appeal. Give not up the ghost of what you do to those silicon devils.
Let your students think themselves writers only when what they do is tangible and real, like the echo of genius, truth, beauty, and wisdom.