This week, I decided we had to do something different and hopefully more motivating for some very reluctant writers.  I worked my way back through the VLN sites I have been reading, and the PD we have had over the past year or two and decided to give Etherpad another go.  I decided to start with narratives, following the Recipe for Writing with Etherpads as per Jill Hammonds and Phyllis Johnson.  
We have only had one session but every pair got stuck in, followed the start up recipe pretty well, and are into writing their setting - what can be seen through a camera lens for the opening scene.   
Our etherpad addresses, if you want to check out our starters, are:  etherpad.mozilla.org/Hunterville8A   and   etherpad.mozilla.org/Hunterville8B 
Thanks for Jill and Phyllis for sharing and helping teachers everywhere!

So, here is their recipe:

Ingredients: Setting the scene, Tuning in the ear, Developing the character, Creating the action, The resolution.

Method:

1. Bring your reader in to a powerful setting of the scene where your story is to unfold.  It helps to imagine that you have a digital camera and have taken a photo of the place where your story is to happen.  Remember you are holding the camera, so you are not in the picture at this stage.  It is a still camera, so while there may be suggested movement, such as "the waves rolled gently to the shore", there is no action in the story at this time.

2. Introduce some sound into the scene to further engage the senses of the reader.

3. Have your character appear dramatically within the setting.  We should get to know something of this character by the way you portray them.

4. Create the action that will bind the reader into the story and continue to develop this to the penultimate moment.

5. Resolve the story with some revisiting of the initial scene, the sounds or the character that was central to the storyline but something has changed - perhaps forever.  Leave your reader with something magic to hold on to.