Online student writing club

I had an idea this weekend to put together some kind of online writing club for kids.

The idea would be that it function like other extracurricular clubs but would be online, possibly hosted in a wiki. The writing could take on different forms each week, including various collaborative writing projects. It could even be broader....perhaps a "communications club"....to include other kinds of activities like podcasting, movie making, etc.

I love writing myself, and I think this would be an engaging and valuable activity for students.

Anyone know any schools doing something like this? Any ideas or thoughts?

Writing...some research you might be able to use

I recently attended a presentation by Dr. Doug Reeves of the Center for Performance Assessment , known for the 90/90/90 research. One of Dr. Reeves' points that really resonated with me was the identification of expository writing as a best practice that significantly improves student achievement in all subject areas and on standardized tests.

Over the past year, I've been working on a project focused on improving student writing in four middle schools. I have a deep personal love for writing, so this project is of great interest. It's very exciting to see kids who have not had much academic success in the past find something they can do well and maybe even enjoy. I believe that for many of these kids, technology makes the difference. It frees them to be creative, expressive, and successful.

It's good to see some research on this that ties back to test scores, because in today's environment, that's everything. Unfortunate, but true.