[Replicable Practices] Tricking my students to write an Opinion Essay. What I mean is Creating Comics & Cartoons

The students in my class are very opinionated. I often hear them get into fiery discussions with their peers about who is the best basketball player, favourite recording artist or favourite team in any given sport. They are also very good at coming up with advantageous reasons as to why they should not be in school uniform or why they should not receive a zero for an assignment they may or may not hand in. However when student's are asked to write an opinion essay they become so burdened, listless and lethargic in getting pencil to paper (fingers to keyboard). Of course I go over with the class countless examples and writing guides on how to write and effective opinion essay but somehow they do not seem to enthusiastic about it (I do not blame them, since the my old way was a snooze). Personally I happen to think it is the term 'essay' extinguishes their writing flame despite the fact that they can argue with some incredible points of view. One idea that I would like to explore to further my own replicable practices when it comes to delivering a lesson about writing an opinion essay is through the use of Comic Creators.

[Replicable Practices] Individual Education Plan (IEP)

Looking for a specific reference to a particular section in one of my student's IEP I was searching within the school for the Individual Education Plans: Standards for Development, Program Planning, and Implementation, 2000 booklet. Having no luck tracking a paper copy down I resorted to the online version. One can navigate through the Ontario Ministry Of Education website to find it, along with curriculum documents, and other policy and resources documents.

• Update: The Individual Education Plan (IEP), A Resource Guide, 2004 (PDF)