This is a creative writing prompt worksheet that can help your students to think outside the box when it comes to writing. Creative writing prompts, such as this one, can cause students’ creativity to show through in humor, drama, sorrow, happiness, etc. You can take the worksheet and make it your own by adding different things to the categories to fit what you believe your students will need. Happy writing!
Category Archives: Cody Smith
Variety is the Spice of Life!
I interviewed a college student and friend of mine, Courtney Kennedy, who is a Psychology major, in order to gain some insight into what types of writing tasks were most helpful to her in high school. I also asked her about other tasks and teacher techniques that aided in improving her writing and what could be done to make writing more interesting. Courtney, whose favorite subject in high school was Algebra II, said the key to her enjoying writing lessons was that there had to be variety. Some prompts that her teachers offered were quotes from famous people and these were the prompts she enjoyed most. Her favorite one, she recalls, was a quote that stated “Stop going around saying the world owes you anything. The world owes you nothing, it was here first.” The assignment was to interpret the quote, and I found this interesting because prompts like this can motivate students to produce thought provoking writing by causing them to think about serious topics or ideas.
Another theme in Courtney’s interview is that of a student’s choice in what they write. This obviously will not work all the time (what student would choose to write an eight page research paper), but simple writing prompts such as journals and opinion based responses could open up students to the world of writing. Having the students write about something they care about and asking for their opinions can lead into argumentative papers based on an opinion that must be supported with factual evidence.
When asked about varied prompts for an assignment and whether or not they helped her in her writing her response was “Two different prompts for the same assignment: –Yes, because variety is always helpful, and giving students a choice makes writing easier.” As the saying goes, “Variety is the spice of life.” If a student is given only one writing prompt on an exam and they don’t have a firm grasp of the subject matter, they will not do well on the exam. But, if the teacher provides several different prompts, or at least two or three, it provides the student with a better opportunity to show the teacher their knowledge. The moral of the story is: don’t do the same things every day. Students will become easily bored and unenthused with the material. By changing it up, you, the teacher, can interact with your class on a level that not only engages them in the activity, but also challenges their minds and gets them thinking! Here is a powerpoint presentation that has a variety of writing tasks and prompts!
Writing Tasks to Engage and Inspire Students
There are many ways that writing teachers can inspire their students to write. By utilizing several tools, teachers not only allow their students to become more engaged in the writing process, but they, the students, can actually learn to enjoy it. Tasks to encourage and engage students in the writing process include creative tasks such as games, writing prompts the students can relate their own experiences to, video and picture prompts, and changes of scenery such as locating to a new venue such as the football field or gym to stimulate inspiration. Teaching writing does not have to be a difficult process, challenging yes, but not torturous or difficult.
The first mentioned task to inspire writing in students is using different games and prompts to engage the students. A game, such as a continuous story passed around the classroom by the students (this game begins with an introductory sentence for example: It was a dark and stormy night, and then each student adds one sentence to contribute to the story until it is a complete story that everyone has created), can engage students and cause them to learn without being boring.
With technology today, students need more constructive and unique ways to remain in the task at hand. Technology has turned the attention span away from literal activities away from a video game or phone screen. This challenge of constantly engaging students can be used to the teacher’s advantage. Technology provides several unique tools that can engage students even further. These can be prompts from a video, song, or movie clip, there are also different websites that can be provide different prompts and ideas for a writing teacher to use with their students.
The next mentioned task is to change the scenery to outside of the classroom. If the principal will allow class to take place outside, or in another portion of the school, this venue change can inspire a student. With an accompanying prompt, have the students seek out an inspiring portion of their surroundings, and have them write about that. This change can also cause students to break out. The confines of a classroom are enough to make any student shudder, but a change of setting can bring about positive results. It can be easy to engage students, but the tasks can sometimes become difficult to come up with. It is your job as a teacher to find new and exciting ways to keep the students interested.
Cody Smith – Annotated Bibliography
“Literacy Teaching Ideas.” Teaching Ideas. Teaching Ideas. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.This website has several useful tools. These tools include lesson ideas, worksheets, and activities, and they can be used in several different manners to inspire students and allow them to become more active in the writing process.
Thomas, Mark R. “Get Lit.” Supervisor Mark RidleyThomas. Mark Ridley Thomas, 13 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.This website takes a unique stance to get kids inspired to write. They have teenagers get up on stage and read inspiring poems that they themselves have written or have been written by others. It also teaches students about public speaking and self confidence by giving them the opportunity to share their work.
Hurley, Stephen. “The Benefits of Taking Students Outside to Inspire Writing.” Edutopia. Edutopia, 15 Sept. 2009. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.This website offers students a new perspective on what can inspire writing. It’s not just everyday situations and people, but inanimate objects can also be inspiring. An example assignment could be to have the students find something outside and create either a poem or a short story. By using this strategy, it can allow students to have more freedom within their creative writing and prepare them for more difficult writing tasks.
“Teaching and Learning Strategies.” Johns Hopkins University-Teaching and Learning Strategies. Johns Hopkins University, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.This website offers several tools to assess the learning of different types of students. It does not focus on writing tasks, but it focuses on the type of students that different types of instruction can benefit. Not every student is the same and it will take different approaches to reach each student. By learning about the different types of learning, classrooms, and instruction, a teacher can better create activities to suit their students.
“30 Ideas for Teaching Writing.” National Writing Project. National Writing Project, 2003. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.This website source is apart of the National Writing Project, and this specific page of the website gives a teacher 30 ideas for teaching writing. These can be especially useful when a teacher is stuck on how to engage his or her students. The prompts and ideas vary from creative and constructive to unique and engaging. There are several ideas for a teacher to use to engage students and there is a large variety.
“Writing Prompts.” Tumblr. Tumblr, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.This website has several unique and thought provoking writing prompts. Teachers can utilize these in their classrooms to keep students interested in writing and get them more involved in the writing process. The variety of these prompts will help overcome students becoming bored, and it will prepare them for more difficult forms of writing if the teacher has a prompt for them to work with daily.
Kennedy, Courtney. “Courtney Writing Interview.” E-mail interview. 9 Apr. 2013.This interview was with Courtney Kennedy. I asked her questions about what types of writing tasks interested her as a high school student. I also asked her what types of tasks were the most beneficial to her as a high school student. The main point she made was that variety was key to keeping students interested.
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