JF great article. As I read this I wondered about the students we taught so many years ago during a laissez faire approach to teaching children to write...no grammar, no modeling...it was a lean time. Those students are now teachers and all will say they have no idea about grammar.

From a personal perspective my daughter does, but we taught her when she was little. She was also highly-creative.

Not sure how story nerd assignment fits in this...maybe as example of how you might turn a writer around.