Students will get more out of writing if they’re excited about the topic. Ask a 12-year-old to tell you why he likes Call of Duty, and I bet he’ll produce 3 or 4 volumes of well-developed prose.

Or, as Rob Stone suggests, have them write about music.

As the online host of the “iPod-inspired, Writing Across the Curriculum homepage“, Rob argues that the two most important things for any student are technology and music.

Thanks to the emergence of personal music players (that’s the PC way of saying iPod) and music studios’ relentless pursuit of students with a disposable income, student’s lives are accompanied by an endless stream of pop music. While music is primarily distributed for entertainment, most artists explore concepts and themes in their music which may used as a basis for thoughtful writing.

Over at WritingFix, Rob has collected over 50 lessons plans tied to a specific “mentor text” (a song and its lyrics), designed to engage students through writing.

Involving artists like Ben Harper, The Cure, The Beatles, Jack Johnson, and Sara Bareilles, the lessons generally asks students to write a poem that expands on a theme in the song, or to mimic the content and format of a particular selection.

One thing to keep in mind: just because you’re using music doesn’t mean you’re being relevant. A senior in high school (born around 1991) probably won’t be too familiar with Pat Benatar, Jim Croce, Neil Diamond, or Don McLean.

It’s worth checking out the current Top 30 to see what music your students are likely listening to. Of course, make sure to check the lyrics to make sure they’re appropriate for class.

And there’s no reason to limit the lesson output to poetry. You can use “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel to prompt some discussion of historical events and how they shaped our society. “The 3 R’s” by Jack Johnson is a great way to get students thinking about the environment and they can help the school “go green”.

Let your imagination go wild. Then, surprise your students by asking them to take out their iPods instead of their pencils.

Content-area writing is all about getting students to write outside of English class to help them better engage with and understand course material. Enhancing the lessons of any subject with writing activities helps students build connections, demonstrate knowledge and retain information.

Though its educational benefits are clear, assessing content area writing can be intimidating to non-English teachers. As Debbie Shults notes “some content area teachers feel they are not up to the task of ‘teaching writing.’”

Fair enough.

Luckily, content area teachers don’t have to be writing experts to incorporate writing in their classroom. Writing in a content area should emphasize what is said (ideas, concepts and connections) rather than how it is said (correct spelling and grammar).

General writing skills are important, but students should be allowed to concentrate on delving into the subject matter to wrestle with new ideas without being afraid of misplacing a comma.

Keeping this in mind, Shults suggests using rubrics to “determine the essential criteria of an assignment, describe the various levels of quality, and concisely communicate expectations to their students.” This takes some of the anxiety out of assessment.

Also, avoid limiting yourself to just one type of writing assignment. Shults lists some suggestions:

Solar system web pages, Civil War newspapers, lab reports, immigrant journals, science fair abstracts, play scripts, R.A.F.T. papers, biographies of scientists, interview questions, timeline narratives, response-note taking formats, and storyboards for film or slide presentations are just a few of the infinite and realistic ways content area teachers can help students hone the writing skills that language arts teachers have helped them develop.

At the college level, one of the professors we work with recently added “cases” to his sociology class, where students gather information about hypothetical scenarios then offer arguments to espouse a particular stance. An assignment like this goes beyond demonstrating knowledge and encourages reading comprehension and critical thinking skills.

There are a number of resources on the web with more good ideas for assignments.

It doesn’t take much to put together a few new assignments and quickly get “a window into how students think about the concepts they are learning.” It’s a significant step toward better education for your students.