Mentors to get students started
Are you ready for a unit with wide open choice? Not a genre study, not a thematic study, not a craft study -- just free choice. Worried though that students will claim "writer's block" and have nothing to write? If so, try using some of the following for mentor text that teachers have found to be powerful for launching a choice unit.
It's Complicated: The American Teenager
The Book of Awesome or the blog 1000 awesome things
The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoir
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul
Thanks to Three Teachers Talk for many of these suggestions.
How about a bit of micro/flash fiction? Try "Draft."
James Parker is a master of a subgenre that I'm calling An Ode to... His writing could be fun mentor text.