Valentine's Day Author's Purpose Activity

I know that it is nowhere near Valentine's Day, but I wanted to go through one of my favorite activities.  For Valentine's Day, I made goody-bags for my students.  Inside, I put bags of conversation hearts along with one of the three main types of author's purpose (persuade, inform, and entertain).  The students had to take their author's purpose and write a story about their conversation hearts.  Some examples are
     Persuade - Students could write their story as an advertisement trying to get others to buy their bag of hearts.
     Inform - Students could write about the words on the hearts or information on the bag (like nutritional information).
    Entertain - Students can create a fun story about their hearts.  The hearts could be best friends, arguing, etc.

I then gave students cute lined paper with hearts on it.  I got some of my best writing all year.  One of my lowest girls gave the best writing.  She got the persuade author's purpose and wrote an amazing advertisement.  I would have bought the hearts! 

I loved the feedback I got back from my students.  I will definitely try this activity again!