Dear Educator,

The BIC QUALITY COMES IN WRITING educational program and website created for BIC in cooperation with Lifetime Learning Systems®, Inc. are designed to help students in grades 4 through 6 improve their writing and communication skills. The website, www.qualitycomesinwriting.com, consists of two areas - one for students, and one for teachers and parents. The BIC Clubhouse contains activities for students, such as spelling bees, paragraphs that have to be put in order to create a story, interactive rebuses, and a printable copy of the poster. The BIC at Home and at School section contains the QUALITY COMES IN WRITING education program that teachers and parents can download and print.

An additional component of the program is the writing contest. (See the rules and entry form in this package for complete details.) This year, students are asked to answer one of three questions. In an essay, students should explain what they can do to help the environment and stop global warming, describe their favorite day of the week, or define the greatest gift they could ever give. In order to help your students brainstorm ideas and prepare to write their own stories for the contest, we have created a list of preliminary activities you could conduct in your classroom to spark your students' imaginations.

• As a class, talk about global warming and other growing problems in the environment. Climate changes, the hole in the ozone layer, and melting polar ice caps are a few examples of how global warming is affecting our world. These changes could cause some potentially serious problems in the future, but we can do our part to help stop global warming.
• Have students make collages that represent their favorite day of the week. Using newspapers, magazines, and other art supplies, students should create a collage that reflects what they do on their favorite day of the week and why it is such an important day for them.
• Ask the class to brainstorm gift ideas that would mean the most to someone they know - a family member, friend, neighbor, classmate, or someone in the community. Explain that often the best gifts are not ones that are bought in stores. What gifts would make the person they chose happy? Have students write why the gifts they chose would have special meaning, and ask them to describe how they would feel giving the gifts.

We hope that you, your colleagues, your students, and their parents will find the QUALITY COMES IN WRITING program, website, and essay contest to be valuable additions to your language arts curriculum.

Sincerely,