fun writing assignments for college students

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Student Opinion

Over 1,000 Writing Prompts for Students

Compiled by Michael Gonchar

• April 12, 2018

Note: We have 300 new argumentative writing prompts to add to this list.

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Of all the resources we publish on The Learning Network, perhaps it’s our vast collection of writing prompts that is our most widely used resource for teaching and learning with The Times.

We’ve published iterations of this post in the past — 200 , 401 and even 650 prompts — but never before have we gathered all our prompts, for both personal and argument writing, into one categorized list.

Admittedly, the list is huge. In fact, there are 1,219 questions below on everything from video games and fashion to smartphones and parenting, and each prompt links to a Times article as well as to additional subquestions that can encourage deeper thinking.

To help you navigate this page, here’s an index of topics:

Technology (1-74): Social Media • Smartphones • Internet & Tech Arts & Entertainment (75-248): Music • Television • Video Games • Movies & Theater • Books & Reading • Writing • The Arts • Language & Speech School & Career (249-449): School • Learning & Studying • Education Tech • Teachers & Grading • School Rules & Student Life • College • Work & Careers Identity & Family (450-828): Parenting • Family • Childhood Memories • Growing Up • Overcoming Adversity • Your Personality • Religion & Morality • Role Models • Gender • Race & Ethnicity • Neighborhood & Home • Money & Social Class • What If... Social Life & Leisure Time (829-1,059): Friendship • Dating & Sex • Looks & Fashion • Food • Sports & Games • Travel • Holidays & Seasons • Shopping & Cars Science & Health (1,060-1,140): Science & Environment • Animals & Pets • Exercise & Health Civics & History (1,141-1,219): Guns & the Justice System • Government Policy • History & News

So dive into the hundreds of writing prompts below — and let us know in the comments how you might use them in your classroom.

Social Media

1. Is Social Media Making Us More Narcissistic? 2. Are You the Same Person on Social Media as You Are in Real Life? 3. How Young Is Too Young to Use Social Media? 4. What Advice Do You Have for Younger Kids About Navigating Social Media? 5. How Do You Use Facebook? 6. What Is Your Facebook Persona? 7. How Real Are You on Social Media? 8. What Memorable Experiences Have You Had on Facebook? 9. Does Facebook Ever Make You Feel Bad? 10. Does Facebook Need a ‘Dislike’ Button? 11. Has Facebook Lost Its Edge? 12. Would You Consider Deleting Your Facebook Account? 13. Would You Quit Social Media? 14. Do You Have ‘Instagram Envy’? 15. Who Is Your Favorite Social Media Star? 16. What’s So Great About YouTube? 17. What Has YouTube Taught You? 18. What Are Your Favorite Viral Videos? 19. What Are Your Favorite Internet Spoofs? 20. What Would You Teach the World in an Online Video? 21. Do You Ever Seek Advice on the Internet? 22. Would You Share an Embarrassing Story Online? 23. Do You Use Twitter? 24. Is Snapchat a Revolutionary Form of Social Media? 25. Why Do You Share Photos? 26. How Do You Archive Your Life? 27. What Ordinary Moments Would You Include in a Video About Your Life? 28. Are Digital Photographs Too Plentiful to Be Meaningful? 29. Do You Worry We Are Filming Too Much? 30. Have You Ever Posted, Emailed or Texted Something You Wish You Could Take Back? 31. Would You Want Your Photo or Video to Go Viral? 32. Do You Worry Colleges or Employers Might Read Your Social Media Posts Someday? 33. Will Social Media Help or Hurt Your College and Career Goals? 34. Should What You Say on Facebook Be Grounds for Getting Fired? 35. Are Anonymous Social Media Networks Dangerous? 36. Should People Be Allowed to Obscure Their Identities Online? 37. Are Parents Violating Their Children’s Privacy When They Share Photos and Videos of Them Online? 38. Would You Mind if Your Parents Blogged About You?

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• Writing Activities

105 Creative Writing Exercises To Get You Writing Again

You know that feeling when you just don’t feel like writing? Sometimes you can’t even get a word down on paper. It’s the most frustrating thing ever to a writer, especially when you’re working towards a deadline. The good news is that we have a list of 105 creative writing exercises to help you get motivated and start writing again!

What are creative writing exercises?

Creative writing exercises are short writing activities (normally around 10 minutes) designed to get you writing. The goal of these exercises is to give you the motivation to put words onto a blank paper. These words don’t need to be logical or meaningful, neither do they need to be grammatically correct or spelt correctly. The whole idea is to just get you writing something, anything. The end result of these quick creative writing exercises is normally a series of notes, bullet points or ramblings that you can, later on, use as inspiration for a bigger piece of writing such as a story or a poem. 

Good creative writing exercises are short, quick and easy to complete. You shouldn’t need to think too much about your style of writing or how imaginative your notes are. Just write anything that comes to mind, and you’ll be on the road to improving your creative writing skills and beating writer’s block . 

Use the generator below to get a random creative writing exercise idea:

List of 105+ Creative Writing Exercises

Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again:

• Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment.
• Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour. For example, Orange, the colour of my favourite top. 
• Open a book or dictionary on a random page. Pick a random word. You can close your eyes and slowly move your finger across the page. Now, write a paragraph with this random word in it. You can even use an online dictionary to get random words:

• Create your own alphabet picture book or list. It can be A to Z of animals, food, monsters or anything else you like!
• Using only the sense of smell, describe where you are right now.
• Take a snack break. While eating your snack write down the exact taste of that food. The goal of this creative writing exercise is to make your readers savour this food as well.
• Pick a random object in your room and write a short paragraph from its point of view. For example, how does your pencil feel? What if your lamp had feelings?
• Describe your dream house. Where would you live one day? Is it huge or tiny? 
• Pick two different TV shows, movies or books that you like. Now swap the main character. What if Supergirl was in Twilight? What if SpongeBob SquarePants was in The Flash? Write a short scene using this character swap as inspiration.
• What’s your favourite video game? Write at least 10 tips for playing this game.
• Pick your favourite hobby or sport. Now pretend an alien has just landed on Earth and you need to teach it this hobby or sport. Write at least ten tips on how you would teach this alien.
• Use a random image generator and write a paragraph about the first picture you see.

• Write a letter to your favourite celebrity or character. What inspires you most about them? Can you think of a memorable moment where this person’s life affected yours? We have this helpful guide on writing a letter to your best friend for extra inspiration.
• Write down at least 10 benefits of writing. This can help motivate you and beat writer’s block.
• Complete this sentence in 10 different ways: Patrick waited for the school bus and…
• Pick up a random book from your bookshelf and go to page 9. Find the ninth sentence on that page. Use this sentence as a story starter.
• Create a character profile based on all the traits that you hate. It might help to list down all the traits first and then work on describing the character.
• What is the scariest or most dangerous situation you have ever been in? Why was this situation scary? How did you cope at that moment?
• Pretend that you’re a chat show host and you’re interviewing your favourite celebrity. Write down the script for this conversation.
• Using extreme detail, write down what you have been doing for the past one hour today. Think about your thoughts, feelings and actions during this time.
• Make a list of potential character names for your next story. You can use a fantasy name generator to help you.
• Describe a futuristic setting. What do you think the world would look like in 100 years time?
• Think about a recent argument you had with someone. Would you change anything about it? How would you resolve an argument in the future?
• Describe a fantasy world. What kind of creatures live in this world? What is the climate like? What everyday challenges would a typical citizen of this world face? You can use this fantasy world name generator for inspiration.
• At the flip of a switch, you turn into a dragon. What kind of dragon would you be? Describe your appearance, special abilities, likes and dislikes. You can use a dragon name generator to give yourself a cool dragon name.
• Pick your favourite book or a famous story. Now change the point of view. For example, you could rewrite the fairytale , Cinderella. This time around, Prince Charming could be the main character. What do you think Prince Charming was doing, while Cinderella was cleaning the floors and getting ready for the ball?
• Pick a random writing prompt and use it to write a short story. Check out this collection of over 300 writing prompts for kids to inspire you. 
• Write a shopping list for a famous character in history. Imagine if you were Albert Einstein’s assistant, what kind of things would he shop for on a weekly basis?
• Create a fake advertisement poster for a random object that is near you right now. Your goal is to convince the reader to buy this object from you.
• What is the worst (or most annoying) sound that you can imagine? Describe this sound in great detail, so your reader can understand the pain you feel when hearing this sound.
• What is your favourite song at the moment? Pick one line from this song and describe a moment in your life that relates to this line.
•  You’re hosting an imaginary dinner party at your house. Create a list of people you would invite, and some party invites. Think about the theme of the dinner party, the food you will serve and entertainment for the evening. 
• You are waiting to see your dentist in the waiting room. Write down every thought you are having at this moment in time. 
• Make a list of your greatest fears. Try to think of at least three fears. Now write a short story about a character who is forced to confront one of these fears. 
• Create a ‘Wanted’ poster for a famous villain of your choice. Think about the crimes they have committed, and the reward you will give for having them caught. 
• Imagine you are a journalist for the ‘Imagine Forest Times’ newspaper. Your task is to get an exclusive interview with the most famous villain of all time. Pick a villain of your choice and interview them for your newspaper article. What questions would you ask them, and what would their responses be?
•  In a school playground, you see the school bully hurting a new kid. Write three short stories, one from each perspective in this scenario (The bully, the witness and the kid getting bullied).
• You just won $10 million dollars. What would you spend this money on?
• Pick a random animal, and research at least five interesting facts about this animal. Write a short story centred around one of these interesting facts. 
• Pick a global issue that you are passionate about. This could be climate change, black lives matters, women’s rights etc. Now create a campaign poster for this global issue. 
• Write an acrostic poem about an object near you right now (or even your own name). You could use a poetry idea generator to inspire you.
• Imagine you are the head chef of a 5-star restaurant. Recently the business has slowed down. Your task is to come up with a brand-new menu to excite customers. Watch this video prompt on YouTube to inspire you.
• What is your favourite food of all time? Imagine if this piece of food was alive, what would it say to you?
• If life was one big musical, what would you be singing about right now? Write the lyrics of your song. 
• Create and describe the most ultimate villain of all time. What would their traits be? What would their past look like? Will they have any positive traits?
• Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: Every time I look out of the window, I…
• You have just made it into the local newspaper, but what for? Write down at least five potential newspaper headlines . Here’s an example, Local Boy Survives a Deadly Illness.
• If you were a witch or a wizard, what would your specialist area be and why? You might want to use a Harry Potter name generator or a witch name generator for inspiration.
• What is your favourite thing to do on a Saturday night? Write a short story centred around this activity. 
• Your main character has just received the following items: A highlighter, a red cap, a teddy bear and a fork. What would your character do with these items? Can you write a story using these items? 
• Create a timeline of your own life, from birth to this current moment. Think about the key events in your life, such as birthdays, graduations, weddings and so on. After you have done this, you can pick one key event from your life to write a story about. 
• Think of a famous book or movie you like. Rewrite a scene from this book or movie, where the main character is an outsider. They watch the key events play out, but have no role in the story. What would their actions be? How would they react?
• Three very different characters have just won the lottery. Write a script for each character, as they reveal the big news to their best friend.  
• Write a day in the life story of three different characters. How does each character start their day? What do they do throughout the day? And how does their day end?
•  Write about the worst experience in your life so far. Think about a time when you were most upset or angry and describe it. 
• Imagine you’ve found a time machine in your house. What year would you travel to and why?
• Describe your own superhero. Think about their appearance, special abilities and their superhero name. Will they have a secret identity? Who is their number one enemy?
• What is your favourite country in the world? Research five fun facts about this country and use one to write a short story. 
• Set yourself at least three writing goals. This could be a good way to motivate yourself to write every day. For example, one goal might be to write at least 150 words a day. 
• Create a character description based on the one fact, three fiction rule. Think about one fact or truth about yourself. And then add in three fictional or fantasy elements. For example, your character could be the same age as you in real life, this is your one fact. And the three fictional elements could be they have the ability to fly, talk in over 100 different languages and have green skin. 
• Describe the perfect person. What traits would they have? Think about their appearance, their interests and their dislikes. 
• Keep a daily journal or diary. This is a great way to keep writing every day. There are lots of things you can write about in your journal, such as you can write about the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of your day. Think about anything that inspired you or anything that upset you, or just write anything that comes to mind at the moment. 
• Write a book review or a movie review. If you’re lost for inspiration, just watch a random movie or read any book that you can find. Then write a critical review on it. Think about the best parts of the book/movie and the worst parts. How would you improve the book or movie?
• Write down a conversation between yourself. You can imagine talking to your younger self or future self (i.e. in 10 years’ time). What would you tell them? Are there any lessons you learned or warnings you need to give? Maybe you could talk about what your life is like now and compare it to their life?
• Try writing some quick flash fiction stories . Flash fiction is normally around 500 words long, so try to stay within this limit.
• Write a six-word story about something that happened to you today or yesterday. A six-word story is basically an entire story told in just six words. Take for example: “Another football game ruined by me.” or “A dog’s painting sold for millions.” – Six-word stories are similar to writing newspaper headlines. The goal is to summarise your story in just six words. 
• The most common monsters or creatures used in stories include vampires, werewolves , dragons, the bigfoot, sirens and the loch-ness monster. In a battle of intelligence, who do you think will win and why?
• Think about an important event in your life that has happened so far, such as a birthday or the birth of a new sibling. Now using the 5 W’s and 1 H technique describe this event in great detail. The 5 W’s include: What, Who, Where, Why, When and the 1 H is: How. Ask yourself questions about the event, such as what exactly happened on that day? Who was there? Why was this event important? When and where did it happen? And finally, how did it make you feel?
• Pretend to be someone else. Think about someone important in your life. Now put yourself into their shoes, and write a day in the life story about being them. What do you think they do on a daily basis? What situations would they encounter? How would they feel?
• Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: I remember…
• Write about your dream holiday. Where would you go? Who would you go with? And what kind of activities would you do?
• Which one item in your house do you use the most? Is it the television, computer, mobile phone, the sofa or the microwave? Now write a story of how this item was invented. You might want to do some research online and use these ideas to build up your story. 
• In exactly 100 words, describe your bedroom. Try not to go over or under this word limit.
• Make a top ten list of your favourite animals. Based on this list create your own animal fact file, where you provide fun facts about each animal in your list.
• What is your favourite scene from a book or a movie? Write down this scene. Now rewrite the scene in a different genre, such as horror, comedy, drama etc.
•  Change the main character of a story you recently read into a villain. For example, you could take a popular fairytale such as Jack and the Beanstalk, but this time re-write the story to make Jack the villain of the tale.
• Complete the following sentence in at least 10 different ways: Do you ever wonder…
• What does your name mean? Research the meaning of your own name, or a name that interests you. Then use this as inspiration for your next story. For example, the name ‘Marty’ means “Servant Of Mars, God Of War”. This could make a good concept for a sci-fi story.
• Make a list of three different types of heroes (or main characters) for potential future stories.
• If someone gave you $10 dollars, what would you spend it on and why?
• Describe the world’s most boring character in at least 100 words. 
• What is the biggest problem in the world today, and how can you help fix this issue?
• Create your own travel brochure for your hometown. Think about why tourists might want to visit your hometown. What is your town’s history? What kind of activities can you do? You could even research some interesting facts. 
• Make a list of all your favourite moments or memories in your life. Now pick one to write a short story about.
• Describe the scariest and ugliest monster you can imagine. You could even draw a picture of this monster with your description.
• Write seven haikus, one for each colour of the rainbow. That’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. 
• Imagine you are at the supermarket. Write down at least three funny scenarios that could happen to you at the supermarket. Use one for your next short story. 
• Imagine your main character is at home staring at a photograph. Write the saddest scene possible. Your goal is to make your reader cry when reading this scene. 
• What is happiness? In at least 150 words describe the feeling of happiness. You could use examples from your own life of when you felt happy.
• Think of a recent nightmare you had and write down everything you can remember. Use this nightmare as inspiration for your next story.
• Keep a dream journal. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning you can quickly jot down things that you remember from your dreams. These notes can then be used as inspiration for a short story. 
• Your main character is having a really bad day. Describe this bad day and the series of events they experience. What’s the worst thing that could happen to your character?
• You find a box on your doorstep. You open this box and see the most amazing thing ever. Describe this amazing thing to your readers.
• Make a list of at least five possible settings or locations for future stories. Remember to describe each setting in detail.
• Think of something new you recently learned. Write this down. Now write a short story where your main character also learns the same thing.
• Describe the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Your goal is to amaze your readers with its beauty. 
• Make a list of things that make you happy or cheer you up. Try to think of at least five ideas. Now imagine living in a world where all these things were banned or against the law. Use this as inspiration for your next story.
• Would you rather be rich and alone or poor and very popular? Write a story based on the lives of these two characters. 
• Imagine your main character is a Librarian. Write down at least three dark secrets they might have. Remember, the best secrets are always unexpected.
• There’s a history behind everything. Describe the history of your house. How and when was your house built? Think about the land it was built on and the people that may have lived here long before you.
• Imagine that you are the king or queen of a beautiful kingdom. Describe your kingdom in great detail. What kind of rules would you have? Would you be a kind ruler or an evil ruler of the kingdom?
• Make a wish list of at least three objects you wish you owned right now. Now use these three items in your next story. At least one of them must be the main prop in the story.
• Using nothing but the sense of taste, describe a nice Sunday afternoon at your house. Remember you can’t use your other senses (i.e see, hear, smell or touch) in this description. 
• What’s the worst pain you felt in your life? Describe this pain in great detail, so your readers can also feel it.
• If you were lost on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, what three must-have things would you pack and why?
• Particpate in online writing challenges or contests. Here at Imagine Forest, we offer daily writing challenges with a new prompt added every day to inspire you. Check out our challenges section in the menu.

Do you have any more fun creative writing exercises to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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10 fun writing activities for the reluctant writer

  10 FUN WRITING ACTIVITIES FOR THE RELUCTANT WRITER

No doubt about it – writing isn’t easy. It is no wonder that many of our students could be described as ‘reluctant writers’ at best. It has been estimated by the National Association of Educational Progress that only about 27% of 8th and 12th-grade students can write proficiently.

As educators, we know that regular practice would go a long way to helping our students correct this underachievement, and sometimes, writing prompts just aren’t enough to light the fire.

But how do we get students, who have long since been turned off writing, to put pen to paper and log the requisite time to develop their writing chops?

The answer is to make writing fun! In this article, we will look at some creative writing activities where we can inject a little enjoyment into the writing game.

25 Fun Daily Writing Tasks

Quick Write and JOURNAL Activities for ALL TEXT TYPES in DIGITAL & PDF PRINT to engage RELUCTANT WRITERS .

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1. Poetry Scavenger Hunt

The Purpose: This activity encourages students to see the poetry in the everyday language around them while helpfully reinforcing their understanding of some of the conventions of the genre.

The Process: Encourage students to ‘scavenge’ their school, home, and outside the community for snippets of language they can compile into a piece of poetry or a poetic collage. They may copy down or photograph words, phrases, and sentences from signs, magazines, leaflets or even snippets of conversations they overhear while out and about.

Examples of language they collect may range from the Keep Out sign on private property to the destination on the front of a local bus.

Once students have gathered their language together, they can work to build a poem out of the scraps, usually choosing a central theme to give the piece cohesion. They can even include corresponding artwork to enhance the visual appeal of their work, too, if they wish.

The Prize: If poetry serves one purpose, it is to encourage us to look at the world anew with the fresh eyes of a young child. This activity challenges our students to read new meanings into familiar things and put their own spin on the language they encounter in the world around them, reinforcing the student’s grasp on poetic conventions.

2. Story Chains  

The Purpose: Writing is often thought of as a solitary pursuit. For this reason alone, it can be seen as a particularly unattractive activity by many of our more gregarious students. This fun activity exercises students’ understanding of writing structures and engages them in fun, creative collaboration.

The Process: Each student starts with a blank paper and pen. The teacher writes a story prompt on the whiteboard. You’ll find some excellent narrative writing prompts here . For example, each student spends two minutes using the writing prompt to kick-start their writing.  

When they have completed this part of the task, they will then pass their piece of paper to the student next to them. Students then continue the story from where the previous student left off for a given number of words, paragraphs, or length of time.

If organized correctly, you can ensure students receive their own initial story back at the end for the writing of the story’s conclusion .

The Prize: This fun writing activity can be used effectively to reinforce student understanding of narrative writing structures, but it can also be fun to try with other writing genres.

Working collaboratively motivates students to engage with the task, as no one wants to be the ‘weak link’ in the finished piece. But, more than that, this activity encourages students to see writing as a communicative and creative task where there needn’t be a ‘right’ answer. This encourages students to be more willing to take creative risks in their work.

3. Acrostic Associations

The Purpose: This is another great way to get students to try writing poetry – a genre that many students find the most daunting.

The Process: Acrostics are simple poems whereby each letter of a word or phrase begins a new line in the poem. Younger students can start off with something very simple, like their own name or their favorite pet and write this vertically down the page.

Older students can take a word or phrase related to a topic they have been working on or have a particular interest in and write it down on the page before beginning to write.

The Prize: This activity has much in common with the old psychiatrist’s word association technique. Students should be encouraged to riff on ideas and themes generated by the focus word or phrase. They needn’t worry about rhyme and meter and such here, but the preset letter for each line will give them some structure to their meanderings and require them to impose some discipline on their wordsmithery, albeit in a fun and loose manner.

4. The What If Challenge

The Purpose: This challenge helps encourage students to see the link between posing interesting hypothetical questions and creating an entertaining piece of writing.

The Process: To begin this exercise, have the students come up with a single What If question, which they can then write down on a piece of paper. The more off-the-wall, the better!

For example, ‘What if everyone in the world knew what you were thinking?’ or ‘What if your pet dog could talk?’ Students fold up their questions and drop them into a hat. Each student picks one out of the hat before writing on that question for a suitable set amount of time.

Example What If Questions

• “What if you woke up one day and found out that you had the power to time travel?”
• “What if you were the last person on Earth? How would you spend your time?”
• “What if you were granted three wishes, but each one came with a terrible consequence?”
• “What if you discovered a secret portal to another world? Where would you go, and what would you do?”
• “What if you woke up one day with the ability to communicate with animals? How would your life change?”

The Prize: Students are most likely to face the terror of the dreaded Writer’s Block when they are faced with open-ended creative writing tasks.

This activity encourages the students to see the usefulness of posing hypothetical What If questions, even random off-the-wall ones, for kick-starting their writing motors.

Though students begin by answering the questions set for them by others, please encourage them to see how they can set these questions for themselves the next time they suffer from a stalled writing engine.

5. The Most Disgusting Sandwich in the World

The Purpose: Up until now, we have looked at activities encouraging our students to have fun with genres such as fiction and poetry. These genres being imaginative in nature, more easily lend themselves to being enjoyable than some of the nonfiction genres.

But what about descriptive writing activities? In this activity, we endeavor to bring that same level of enjoyment to instruction writing while also cleverly reinforcing the criteria of this genre.

The Process: Undoubtedly, when teaching instruction writing, you will at some point cover the specific criteria of the genre with your students.

These will include things like the use of a title, numbered or bulleted points, time connectives, imperatives, diagrams with captions etc. You will then want the students to produce their own piece of instruction writing or procedural text to display their understanding of how the genre works.

 But, why not try a fun topic such as How to Make the Most Disgusting Sandwich in the World rather than more obvious (and drier!) topics such as How to Tie Your Shoelaces or How to Make a Paper Airplane when choosing a topic for your students to practice their instruction writing chops?

Example of a Most Disgusting Sandwich Text

The Prize: As mentioned, with nonfiction genres, in particular, we tend to suggest more banal topics for our students to work on while internalizing the genre’s criteria. Enjoyment and acquiring practical writing skills need not be mutually exclusive.

Our students can just as quickly, if not more easily, absorb and internalize the necessary writing conventions while engaged in writing about whimsical and even nonsensical topics.

if your sandwich is entering the realm of horror, be sure to check our complete guide to writing a scary story here as well.

Daily Quick Writes For All Text Types

Our FUN DAILY QUICK WRITE TASKS will teach your students the fundamentals of CREATIVE WRITING across all text types. Packed with 52 ENGAGING ACTIVITIES

6. Diary Entry of a Future Self

The Purpose: This activity allows students to practice personal writing within diary/journal writing conventions. It also challenges them to consider what their world will be like in the future, perhaps stepping a foot into the realm of science fiction.

The Process: Straightforwardly, after working through some examples of diary or journal writing, and reviewing the various criteria of the genre, challenge the students to write an entry at a given milestone in the future.

This may be when they leave school, begin work, go to university, get married, have kids, retire, etc. You may even wish to get the students to write an entry for a series of future milestones as part of a more extended project.

Example of Message to Future Me Text

The Prize: Students will get a chance here to exercise their understanding of this type of writing , but more than that, they will also get an opportunity to exercise their imaginative muscles too. They will get to consider what shape their future world will take in this engaging thought experiment that will allow them to improve their writing too.

7. Comic Strip Script

The Purpose: Give your students the chance to improve their dialogue writing skills and work on their understanding of character development in this fun activity which combines writing with a series of visual elements.

The Process: There are two ways to do this activity. The first requires you to source or create a comic strip without the dialogue the characters are speaking. This may be as straightforward as using whiteout to erase the words in speech bubbles and making copies for your students to complete.

Alternatively, provide the students with photographs/pictures and strips of cards to form their action sequences . When students have their ‘mute’ strips, they can begin to write the dialogue/script to link the panels together.

The Prize: When it comes to writing, comic strips are probably one of the easier sells to reluctant students! This activity also allows students to write for speech. This will stand to them later when they come to produce sections of dialogue in their narrative writing or when producing play or film scripts.

They will also develop their visual literacy skills as they scan the pictures for clues of tone and context before they begin their writing.

Keep It Fun

Just as we should encourage our students to read for fun and wider educational benefits, we should also work to instil similar attitudes towards writing. To do this means we must work to avoid always framing writing in the context of a chore, that bitter pill that must be swallowed for the good of our health.

There is no getting away from the fact that writing can, at times, be laborious. It is time-consuming and, for most of us, difficult at the best of times. There is a certain, inescapable amount of work involved in becoming a competent writer.

That said, as we have seen in the activities above, with a bit of creative thought, we can inject fun into even the most practical of writing activities . All that is required is a dash of imagination and a sprinkling of effort.

8. Character Interviews

The Purpose: Character interviews as writing activities are excellent for students because they encourage creative thinking, character development, and empathy. The purpose of this activity is to help students delve deeper into the minds of the characters they are creating in their stories or reading about in literature. By conducting interviews with these characters, students gain a better understanding of their personalities, motivations, and perspectives.

The Process of character interviews involves students imagining themselves as interviewers and their characters as interviewees. They can either write out the questions and answers in a script-like format or write a narrative where the character responds to the questions in their own voice.

The Prize: Through character interviews, students learn several valuable skills:

• Character Development: By exploring various aspects of their characters’ lives, backgrounds, and experiences, students can develop more well-rounded and authentic characters in their stories. This helps make their fictional creations more relatable and engaging to readers.
• Empathy and Perspective: Conducting interviews requires students to put themselves in their characters’ shoes, considering their thoughts, emotions, and struggles. This cultivates empathy and a deeper understanding of human behavior, which can be applied to real-life situations as well.
• Voice and Dialogue: In crafting the character’s responses, students practice writing authentic dialogue and giving their characters unique voices. This skill is valuable for creating dynamic and believable interactions between characters in their stories.
• Creative Expression: Character interviews provide a creative outlet for students to let their imaginations run wild. They can explore scenarios that may not appear in the main story and discover new aspects of their characters they might not have considered before.
• Critical Thinking: Formulating questions for the interview requires students to think critically about their characters’ personalities and backgrounds. This exercise enhances their analytical skills and storytelling abilities.

Overall, character interviews are a dynamic and enjoyable way for students to delve deeper into the worlds they create or the literature they read. It nurtures creativity, empathy, and writing skills, empowering students to become more proficient and imaginative writers.

9. The Travel Journal

The Purpose: Travel journal writing tasks are excellent for students as they offer a unique and immersive way to foster creativity, cultural awareness, and descriptive writing skills. The purpose of this activity is to allow students to embark on a fictional or real travel adventure, exploring new places, cultures, and experiences through the eyes of a traveller.

The process of a travel journal writing task involves students assuming the role of a traveler and writing about their journey in a journal format. They can describe the sights, sounds, tastes, and emotions they encounter during their travels. This activity encourages students to use vivid language, sensory details, and expressive writing to bring their travel experiences to life.

The Prize: Through travel journal writing tasks, students will learn several valuable skills:

• Descriptive Writing: By describing their surroundings and experiences in detail, students enhance their descriptive writing skills, creating engaging and vivid narratives.
• Cultural Awareness: Travel journals encourage students to explore different cultures, customs, and traditions. This helps broaden their understanding and appreciation of diversity.
• Empathy and Perspective: Through writing from the perspective of a traveler, students develop empathy and gain insight into the lives of people from different backgrounds.
• Research Skills: For fictional travel journals, students might research specific locations or historical periods to make their narratives more authentic and accurate.
• Reflection and Self-Expression: Travel journals offer a space for students to reflect on their own emotions, thoughts, and personal growth as they encounter new experiences.
• Creativity and Imagination: For fictional travel adventures, students get to unleash their creativity and imagination, envisioning fantastical places and scenarios.
• Language and Vocabulary: Travel journal writing tasks allow students to expand their vocabulary and experiment with expressive language.

Overall, travel journal writing tasks inspire students to become more observant, empathetic, and skilled writers. They transport them to new worlds and foster a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world around them. Whether writing about real or imaginary journeys, students develop a deeper connection to the places they encounter, making this activity both educational and enjoyable.

10. The Fairy Tale Remix

The Purpose: A fairy tale remix writing activity is a fantastic creative exercise for students as it allows them to put a unique spin on classic fairy tales, fostering imagination, critical thinking, and storytelling skills. This activity encourages students to think outside the box, reinterpret well-known tales, and explore their creative potential by transforming traditional narratives into something entirely new and exciting.

The process of a fairy tale remix writing activity involves students selecting a familiar fairy tale and altering key elements such as characters, settings, plot twists, or outcomes. They can modernize the story, change the genre, or even mix different fairy tales together to create a wholly original piece.

The Prize: Through this activity, students will learn several valuable skills:

• Creative Thinking: Students exercise their creativity by brainstorming unique concepts and ideas to remix the fairy tales, encouraging them to think imaginatively.
• Critical Analysis: Analyzing the original fairy tale to identify essential elements to keep and areas to remix helps students develop critical thinking skills and understand storytelling structures.
• Writing Techniques: Crafting a remix requires students to use descriptive language, engaging dialogue, and well-developed characters, helping them hone their writing techniques.
• Perspective and Empathy: Remixing fairy tales allows students to explore different character perspectives, promoting empathy and understanding of diverse points of view.
• Genre Exploration: Remixing fairy tales can introduce students to various genres like science fiction, fantasy, or mystery, expanding their literary horizons.
• Originality: Creating their own narrative twists and unexpected plots encourages students to take ownership of their writing and develop a unique voice.
• Storytelling: Students learn the art of compelling storytelling as they weave together familiar elements with innovative ideas, captivating their readers.

By remixing fairy tales, students embark on a creative journey that empowers them to reimagine well-loved stories while honing their writing skills and imaginative prowess. It’s an engaging and enjoyable way for students to connect with literature, explore new possibilities, and showcase their storytelling talents.

Top 5 Tips for Teaching Engaging Creative Writing Lessons

Teaching creative writing can be a thrilling discovery journey for students and educators alike. To foster a love for storytelling and unleash the imaginative prowess of your students, here are five engaging tips for your creative writing lessons:

1. Embrace Playfulness : Encourage a spirit of playfulness and experimentation in your classroom. Encourage students to explore unconventional ideas, characters, and settings. Use fun writing prompts like “What if animals could talk?” or “Imagine a world where gravity is reversed.”

2. Incorporate Visual Stimuli : Visual aids can be powerful creative catalysts. Show intriguing images or short videos to spark students’ imaginations. Ask them to describe what they see, then guide them to weave stories around these visuals. This approach can lead to unexpected and captivating narratives.

3. Encourage Peer Collaboration : Foster community and collaboration among your students. Organize group writing activities where students can brainstorm, share ideas, and build upon each other’s stories. This not only enhances creativity but also promotes teamwork and communication skills.

4. Explore Different Genres : Introduce students to various writing genres—fantasy and science fiction to mystery and historical fiction. Let them experiment with different styles and find what resonates most with their interests. Exposing students to diverse genres can broaden their horizons and inspire fresh ideas.

5. Celebrate Individuality : Encourage students to infuse unique experiences and perspectives into their writing. Provide opportunities for them to write about topics that are meaningful to them. Celebrate their voices and help them discover the power of their narratives.

Remember, the key to teaching creative writing is to create a supportive and inspiring environment where students feel empowered to take risks and explore the limitless possibilities of storytelling. By embracing these tips, you can transform your classroom into a vibrant imagination and literary exploration hub. Happy writing!

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Creative writing prompts

Get students writing with over 30 creative writing prompts. Helping students explore their curiosity and giving them the boost they need to get started with writing.

How to use our creative writing prompts?

Think of these 30 creative writing prompts as quick brainstorms to give you something interesting to focus on and start writing about. Great for using with students in your classroom, or setting homework assignments.

Choose a writing prompt from the list below:

• What animal would judge us the most? Write a scene (based on truth or fiction) where two or more people are doing something silly, and they're being observed and criticized by animals.
• Imagine that we lost all electricity, water, and gas for a month without any time to prepare. Write about how your life would change and how you would survive.
• Can honesty honestly be bad? Write about someone, fact or fiction, who gets in trouble for being too truthful.
• Pick two characters from different books you’ve read this year and have them get in an argument about something (e.g., who has suffered more, who has had a happier life, etc.).
• What if your pet could only talk to you at midnight for an hour?
• Imagine that you are an astronaut who has been doing research on the moon for three years. You are going to go back to earth in a week when nuclear war breaks out on earth. You watch the earth explode. Then what?
• Create a menu from a fictitious restaurant. Make sure the restaurant has a theme, such as Classic Books, and the food should all be given appropriate names (e.g., “Mockingbird Pie”).
• Imagine a moral dilemma (for example, you see someone shoplift or a friend tells a blatant lie to her parents about where she was last night) and explain what you would do and why you would do it.
• You’re a talk show host. Pick two guests. Why did you choose them? Are they people who get along, or people with vastly different viewpoints? Write about the episode.
• Free write on this quote by Woodrow Wilson: “Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”
• Describe your dream bedroom. What would be in it and why?
• The moment I woke up, I knew something wasn’t right…
• List six true sentences that begin with the words “I'll never forget…”
• Tell this story: “Well, I thought it was going to be a regular summer doing all our regular things…”
• A guitar pick, a red balloon, and a wicker basket. Write a scene or a poem that includes these three objects.
• Imagine that someone says to you, “Because that's how we've always done it!” Write this out as a scene. (Think: Who said it, what were the circumstances, how did you respond, etc.)
• What can we learn from contrast? Write a description of something very dark (like a crow) in a very light place (like a field of snow). Make the dark thing seem innocent and the light thing seem ominous.
• “I was so mortified, I wanted to crawl in a hole!” Write a short narrative (fiction or nonfiction) where this is your first sentence. Illustrate it if you want.
• Tell this story: “There it was, finally. Our island. Our very own island. It looked beautiful above the waves of fog, but there was still one question to be answered: why had they sold it to us for only five dollars?”
• "When I stepped outside, the whole world smelled like…" Write a scene that starts with that line.
• Use these two lines of dialogue in a story: "What's in your hand?" "It's mine. I found it."
• Write a story for children. Start with “Once upon a time” or “Long ago in a land far away.” Include a dragon, a deadly flower, and a mask.
• "Did she actually just say that?" Write a scene that includes this line.
• Create a story using words of one-syllable only, beginning with a phrase such as:

“The last time I saw her, she...”

“From the back of the truck...”

“On the night of the full moon...”

“The one thing I know for sure…”

“What you don’t know what hurt you.” Write a story that begins with this statement.

"That's not what I meant!" Write a story that has this line in it somewhere

Try these creative writing prompts using Read&Write

Read&Write is a literacy support tool that helps students with everyday reading and writing tasks. Your students can use tools in Read&Write like Check It, Talk and Type, and the text and picture dictionaries to help them to express their thoughts and ideas.

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Creative Writing Activities for College Students

In their academic career, every student will need to employ creative writing at one point or another. Creative writing, by definition, is any writing that is not academic or technical. Essentially, everything that is considered literature, in the narrow sense, is creative writing – even nonfiction.

Though you might not be planning to become a professional writer, creative writing is an important skill to hone if you’re planning to have any occupation that requires you to think – which is pretty much all of them. It’s a muscle that can and should be developed with the right exercises. Going to the gym, as we all know, is no fun, but creative writing doesn’t have to be a chore – treat it as an opportunity to show off your creativity and inventiveness. So with that said, let’s delve into some writing exercises that are sure to get those creative juices flowing.

1. Write a Personal Essay

When you‘re just starting to develop as a writer, you’re faced with a tough choice: what do you want to write? Will it be a novel? A screenplay? A poem? Well, novels are a little too much even for experienced writers, so try writing something short to start off. An essay, for instance. Essays are a great place to start, since, in terms of literary genre, they are essentially “everything that’s not something else”, so the pressure is off to adhere to some vague standard of form, structure, etc.

Try writing a personal essay. Everyone, as they say, has a story to tell. Why not mine your life for writing material? You’re sure to have experienced or witnessed something worth writing about. If you’re still miffed, try writing about a “first time”. First kiss, first time you went on an airplane, first time you were disappointed at a gift and had to pretend you liked it in front of your family; they all make for great stories. If you’re worried about being boring, don’t be – every story can be a good story if it’s told well.

2. Take a Short Story and Turn It Into a Screenplay

Is there a particular short story that you’ve read in the past and loved? A great writing exercise is turning one form of literature into another, and the short story into screenplay is one of the easiest conversions. The screenplay doesn’t have to be very long to be a “proper screenplay” and since you’re a beginner who doesn’t have to show the work to anyone, you can ditch the standard formatting and stick to writing what you want.

One thing to remember about screenplays is that they’re not meant to be read, they’re meant to be performed. This frame of mind will be useful to any upstart writer, since it forces you to think how it will sound, and don’t be afraid of sounding it out yourself. In fact, get up and perform to an empty room if you have to, it’ll make your characters sound all the more real.

For an extra challenge, think about how your characters talk and whether it matches their personality. Accents and affectations are obvious, but would a princess actually talk like that? What does a waitress say after she’s been stiffed on a tip? How does she say it?

3. Go To a Public Place and Listen To Conversations

There’s nothing like listening to real people talk to inspire characters. Go into a park or a bar, somewhere you’re sure to overhear someone’s conversations, and write down snippets from it. You don’t have to listen from start to end, just write down whatever strikes you as interesting. After collecting a few (pages of) notes, go home and review them. Pick one that strikes your fancy, and write a dialogue around it – treat it either as a beginning or something in the middle.

Here’s the important part, though: the dialogue shouldn’t be aimless, and that goes for all your writing. Every character, at all times, must want something – that’s what compels them to action and what moves the story further. So when you’re inventing that dialogue, try to envision characters that both want something from each other.

What do they want? That’s up to you to decide. With this exercise, try and establish the following for both characters in a single dialogue: what they want, why they want it, what they’re willing to do to get it, their relationship to each other. It must have a beginning, middle and end, have stakes, motivation, and, finally, conflict. If it seems like a lot of work, it’s because it is. Any good writer knows to include all of these seamlessly. Let’s hope you will one day, too.

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50 Fantastic Creative Writing Exercises

Good question.

Creative writing exercises are designed to teach a technique. They are highly specific, more specific than creative writing prompts, and much more specific than story generators.

Creative writing exercises for adults are not designed to lead the writer into crafting a full story, but are only designed to help them improve as a writer in a narrow, specific category of writing skills.

I’ve broken the exercises below into categories so you can choose what category of skill you’d like to practice. Can you guess which category in this list has the most prompts?

If you guessed characters, then you’re right. I think characters are the heart blood of every story, and that a majority of any writing prompts or writing exercises should focus on them.

But I also think any of these will help you create a narrative, and a plot, and help you generate all kinds of dialogue, whether for short stories or for novels. These writing exercises are pretty much guaranteed to improve your writing and eliminate writer’s block. 

Also, if you’re a fledgling writer who needs help writing their novel, check out my comprehensive guide to novel writing.

Enjoy the five categories of writing exercises below, and happy writing!

1. Think of the most deafening sound you can imagine. Describe it in great detail, and have your character hear it for the first time at the start of a story.

2. Have a man cooking for a woman on a third date, and have her describe the aromas in such loving and extended detail that she realizes that she’s in love with him.

3. Pick a line from one of your favorite songs, and identify the main emotion. Now write a character who is feeling that emotion and hears the song. Try to describe the type of music in such a beautiful way that you will make the reader yearn to hear the song as well.

4. Have a character dine at a blind restaurant, a restaurant in pitch blackness where all the servers are blind, and describe for a full paragraph how the tablecloth, their clothing, and the hand of their dining partner feels different in the darkness.

5. Select a dish representative of a national cuisine, and have a character describe it in such detail that the reader salivates and the personality of the character is revealed.

7. Describe two characters having a wordless conversation, communicating only through gestures. Try to see how long you can keep the conversation going without any words spoken, but end it with one of them saying a single word, and the other one repeating the same word.

8. In a public place from the last vacation you took, have two characters arguing, but make it clear by the end of the argument that they’re not arguing about what they’re really upset about.

9. Write a scene composed mostly of dialogue with a child talking to a stranger. Your mission is to show the child as heartbreakingly cute. At the same time, avoid sentimentality. 

10. Have two character have a conversation with only a single word, creating emphasis and context so that the word communicates different things each time it is spoken. The prime example of this is in the television show “The Wire,” where Jimmy and Bunk investigate a crime scene repeating only a single expletive.

11. Pick an object that is ugly, and create a character who finds it very beautiful. Have the character describe the object in a way that convinces the reader of its beauty. Now write a second version where you convince the reader (through describing the object alone) that the character is mentally unstable.

12. Write down five emotions on slips of paper and slip them into a hat. Now go outside and find a tree. Draw one emotion from the hat, and try to describe that tree from the perspective of a character feeling that emotion. (Don’t mention the emotion in your writing — try to describe the tree so the reader could guess the emotion).

13. Describe a character’s bedroom in such a way that it tells us about a person’s greatest fears and hopes.

14. Root through your desk drawer until you find a strange object, an object that would probably not be in other people’s drawers. Have a character who is devastated to find this object, and tell the story of why this object devastates them.

15. Go to an art-based Pinterest page and find your favorite piece of art. Now imagine a living room inspired by that flavor of artwork, and show the room after a husband and wife have had the worst fight of their marriage.

16. Pick a simple object like a vase, a broom, or a light bulb, and write a scene that makes the reader cry when they see the object.

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17. Make a list of the top five fears in your life. Write a character who is forced to confront one of those fears.

18. Write an entire page describing the exact emotions when you learned of a happy or calamitous event in your life. Now try to condense that page into a single searing sentence.

19. Think about a time in your life when you felt shame. Now write a character in a similar situation, trying to make it even more shameful.

20. Write a paragraph with a character struggle with two conflicting emotions simultaneously. For example, a character who learns of his father’s death and feels both satisfaction and pain.

21. Write a paragraph where a character starts in one emotional register, and through a process of thought, completely evolves into a different emotion.

Characters:

22. Create a minor character based upon someone you dislike. Now have your main character encounter them and feel sympathy and empathy for them despite their faults.

23. Have a kooky character tell a story inside a pre-established form: an instruction manual, traffic update, email exchange, weather report, text message.

24. Write about a character who does something they swore they would never do.

25. Have a character who has memorized something (the names of positions in the Kama Sutra, the entire book of Revelations) recite it while doing something completely at odds with what they’re reciting. For instance, bench pressing while reciting the emperors in a Chinese dynasty.

26. Write a paragraph where a character does a simple action, like turning on a light switch, and make the reader marvel at how strange and odd it truly is.

27. Have a couple fight while playing a board game. Have the fight be about something related to the board game: fighting about money, have them play monopoly. Fighting about politics, let them play chess.

28. Write about two characters angry at each other, but have both of them pretend the problems don’t exist. Instead, have them fight passive-aggressively, through small, snide comments.

29. Describe a character walking across an expanse field or lot and describe how he walks. The reader should perfectly understand his personality simply by the way you describe his walk.

30. Write a first-person POV of a character under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and try to make the prose as woozy and tipsy as the character.

31. Describe the first time that a character realizes he is not as smart as he thought.

32. Describe an hour in the life of a character who has recently lost their ability to do what they love most (a pianist who has severe arthritis; a runner who became a quadriplegic).

33. Write an argument where a husband or wife complains of a physical ailment, but their spouse refuses to believe it’s real.

34. Write a scene where a stranger stops your main character, saying that they know them, and insisting your main character is someone they are not. Describe exactly how this case of mistaken identity makes your character feel.

35. Describe a small personality trait about a person you love, and make the reader love them, too.

36. Write a personality-revealing scene with a character inside a public restroom. Do they press a thumb against the mirror to leave a subtle mark? Do they write a plea for help on the inside of the stall door? Do they brag about the size of what they’ve just dumped off?

37. Give your character an extremely unusual response to a national tragedy like a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Maybe have them be aware their response is unusual, and try to cloak it from others, or have them be completely unaware and display it without any self-consciousness.

38. Have one of your main characters come up with an idea for a comic book, and tell a close friend about the idea. What about this idea would surprise the friend, upsetting what he thought he knew about your main character? Also, what would the main character learn about himself from the comic book idea?

39. Think of an illness someone you love has suffered from. How does your character respond when someone close to them has this illness?

40. Have your main character invent an extremely offensive idea for a book, and show their personality faults through discussing it with others.

41. Have your character write down a list considering how to respond to their stalker.

42. Write a scene where a man hits on a woman, and although the woman acts repulsed and begs her friends to get him away from her, it becomes apparent that she likes the attention.

43. Write about a 20-something confronting his parents over their disapproval of his lifestyle.

44. Have your character write a funny to-do list about the steps to get a boyfriend or girlfriend.

45. Have a risk-adverse character stuck in a hostage situation with a risk-happy character.

46. For the next week, watch strangers carefully and take notes in your phone about any peculiar gestures or body language. Combine the three most interesting ones to describe a character as she goes grocery shopping.

47. Buy a package of the pills that expand into foam animals, and put a random one in a glass of warm water. Whatever it turns out to be, have that animal surprise your main character in a scene.

48. Have your character faced with a decision witness a rare, awe-inspiring event, and describe how it helps them make their decision.

49. Imagine if your character met for the first time his or her long-lost identical twin. What personality traits would they share and which ones would have changed because of their unique experiences? 

50. If a character got burned by a hot pan, what type of strange reaction would they have that would reveal what they value most?

Once you’ve taken a stab at some of these exercises, I’d recommend you use them in your actual writing.

And for instruction on that, you need a guide to writing your novel . 

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34 comments

John Fox, you have some excellent resources, and I thank you. I read your comments, then scrolled down to glance at the list of 50 exercises. The FIRST one, “loud noise’ is already in my head. My Hero is going to be side swiped in my Cozy. I was side swiped on a state highway here in Virginia a couple of weeks ago and, although the damage was minor, the sound of that big SUV “glancing” off my little car was SCARY!!! I once heard a fast-moving car REAR-END is stand-still car; that sound was something I’ll never forget. So, your exercise is very timely. THANK YOU!!!

This is a great list! Thanks!

You know what would be motivating? If we could turn these in to someone and get like a grade lol

I can really see the benefit of doing these writing exercises. (Versus using prompts) The purpose is so much clearer. Some I can imagine my response fairly easily. (Though the task of not jumping on the obvious might make it harder than I imagine at this point) Some however I would struggle with ( number 42 for example), where I have zero sympathy for the main character’s plight. Hhhmmmm. But maybe they are the very ones I should be tackling – to see if I can develop them in a way that explains their behaviour and so creates sympathy. Thank you. Much food for thought.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “how to master writing,” and this is the first time that I found an article that makes it clear the difference between prompts and exercises. I fully agree with you. These are bound to make you a better writer if you focus on doing a variation of them daily.

An excellent list – thank you very much. I run a small writing group and we’ll be trying some.

Yes, thank you. I too run a small writing group and you got me out of a slump for tomorrow’s group!

yes,thank you . It’s good for improve your writing skills.

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What a lovely list! I am working on the final draft of my very first novel, and am constantly working at improving the final product. Your exercises are just what I need to kickstart my writing day. Thank you so very much.

Thank you very much When I turned50 I received my diploma from Children’s Institute in West Redding Ct I got my inspiration from being near water however now that I am in Oregon I have had a writing block thanks to your list my creative juices are flowing

I suppose I better have good punctuation, seeing this is about Writing. Thank you for this great list. I am the Chair of our small Writing group in Otorohanga and we start again last week of Feb. I have sent out a homework email, to write a A4 page of something exciting that has happened over the holiday break and they must read it out to the group with passion and excitement in their voices. That will get them out of their comfort zone!

A formidable yet inspiring list. Thank you very much for this. This is really very helpful. I am from India, and very new to writing and have started my first project, which I want to make it into a Novel. This has been very helpful and is very challenging too. Prompts look sissy when compared to this, frankly speaking. Thank you very much again.

Where can I get the answers for these?

There aren’t “answers.” You create responses to these exercises.

Thank you so much for the detailed suggestions focusing on HOW to put the WHAT into practice; really helpful & inspiring.

Just started rough drafting a story I’ve always wanted to write. Do you have any advice for someone writing their first real story? I’m having trouble starting it; I just want it to be perfect.

I consider this very helpful. Just started my journey as a creative writer, and will be coming back to this page to aid my daily writing goal.

I have always loved writing exercises and these are perfect practice for my competition. I have tried lots of different things that other websites have told me to try, but this by far is the most descriptive and helpful site that i have seen so far.

This is really a creative blog. An expert writer is an amateur who didn’t stop. I trust myself that a decent writer doesn’t actually should be advised anything but to keep at it. Keep it up!

I’ve always enjoyed writing from a little girl. Since I’ve been taking it a bit more seriously as does everybody else it seems; I’ve lost the fun and sponteneity. Until now…..this is a marvelous blog to get back the basic joy and freedom in writing. Or should that be of?:) These exercises are perfect to get the creative juices flowing again…..thank you:)

These are interesting exercises for writing.

These are fantastic! I started reading a really awesome book on creative writing but it just didn’t get any good or easy to follow exercises. So I found your site and having been having a lot of fun with these. Exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

creative and inspiring, thank you

I always wanted to have an exercise where a friend and I each wrote a random sentence and sent it to each other to write a short story from that beginning sentence, then exchange the stories for reading and/or critique. Maybe both writers start with the same sentence and see how different the stories turn out.

Thanks for these exercises. Some are really challenging. To truly tackle them I’m having to spend as long beforehand thinking “how the HECK am I going to do this?” as I do with ink on paper. Would be a great resource if other authors submitted their replies and thoughts about how they went about each exercise.

Start the conversation: submit one of yours.

I think I can use these to inspire my students.

Hi there. Thank you for posting this list- it’s great! Can I ask you to consider removing number 42 or perhaps changing it somewhat? I teach sex ed and every year am shocked by how many young people don’t understand issues around consent. Stories about woman who ‘say no but really mean yes’ are deeply unhelpful. Really appreciate your post but felt I had to ask. Thanks.

What’s wrong with the number 42?

It promulgates the belief that when a woman says no, she doesn’t mean it, potentially resulting in sexual assault.

I just make this list a part of my teaching in Creative Writing Classes. Very good list of ideas!

Thank you so much for posting this! I have used it to create a creative playwriting activity for my high school creative writing class–so much good stuff here for me to pick through and select for my kiddos that will allow them to shine and improve their knowledge of writing as a craft!

These exercises are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing 🙂

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In-Class Writing Exercises

If you find yourself wishing your students would write more thoughtful papers or think more deeply about the issues in your course, this handout may help you. At the Writing Center, we work one-on-one with thousands of student writers and find that giving them targeted writing tasks or exercises encourages them to problem-solve, generate, and communicate more fully on the page. You’ll find targeted exercises here and ways to adapt them for use in your course or with particular students.

Writing requires making choices. We can help students most by teaching them how to see and make choices when working with ideas. We can introduce students to a process of generating and sorting ideas by teaching them how to use exercises to build ideas. With an understanding of how to discover and arrange ideas, they will have more success in getting their ideas onto the page in clear prose.

Through critical thinking exercises, students move from a vague or felt sense about course material to a place where they can make explicit the choices about how words represent their ideas and how they might best arrange them. While some students may not recognize some of these activities as “writing,” they may see that doing this work will help them do the thinking that leads to easier, stronger papers.

Brainstorming

In order to write a paper for a class, students need ways to move from the received knowledge of the course material to some separate, more synthesized or analyzed understanding of the course material. For some students this begins to happen internally or through what we call “thinking,” unvoiced mulling, sorting, comparing, speculating, applying, etc. that leads them to new perspectives, understanding, questions, reactions about the course material. This thinking is often furthered through class discussion and some students automatically, internally move from these initial sortings of ideas into complex, logical interpretations of material at this point. But, for more students, their thinking will remain an unorganized, vague set of ideas referring to the subject. Many will have trouble moving beyond this vague sense or simple reaction toward ideas that are more processed, complex, or what we often call “deep.” We can foster that move to a deeper understanding by providing opportunities to externalize and fix their ideas on paper so that they may both see their ideas and then begin to see the relationships between them. The following activities will help students both generate and clarify initial responses to course material:

• Free-writing. Find a clock, watch, or timer to help you keep track of time. Choose a topic, idea, question you would like to consider. It can be a specific detail or a broad concept-whatever you are interested in exploring at the moment. Write (on paper or on a computer) for 7-10 minutes non-stop on that topic. If you get stuck and don’t know what to say next, write “I’m stuck and don’t know what to say next…” or try asking yourself “what else?” until another idea comes to you. Do not concern yourself with spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Your goal is to generate as much as you can about the topic in a short period of time and to get used to the feeling of articulating ideas on the page. It’s ok if it’s messy or makes sense only to you. You can repeat this exercise several times, using the same or a variety of topics connecting to your subject. Read what you have written to see if you have discovered anything about your subject or found a line of questioning you’d like to pursue.
• Clustering/Webbing. Find a clock, watch, or timer to help you keep track of time. Put a word you’d like to explore in the center of a piece of paper and put a circle around it. As fast as you can, free-associate or jot down anywhere on the page as many words as you can think of associated with your center word. If you get stuck, go back to the center word and launch again. Speed is important and quantity is your goal. Don’t discount any word or phrase that comes to you, just put it down on the page. Jot words for between 5-10 minutes. When you are finished you will have a page filled with seemingly random words. Read around on the page and see if you have discovered anything or can see connections between any ideas.
• Listing. On a piece of paper list all the ideas you can think of connected to subjects you are considering exploring. Consider any idea or observation as valid and worthy of listing. List quickly and then set your list aside for a few minutes. Come back and read your list and do the exercise again.
• Cubing. This technique helps you look at your subject from six different points of view (imagine the 6 sides of a cube and you get the idea). Take your topic or idea and 1) describe it, 2) compare it, 3) associate it with something else you know, 4) analyze it (meaning break it into parts), 5) apply it to a situation you are familiar with, 6) argue for or against it. Write at a paragraph, page, or more about each of the six points of view on your subject.
• Journalistic questions. Write these questions down the left hand margin of a piece of paper: Who? What? Where? When? How? And Why? Think about your topic in terms of each question.
• What? So What? Now what? To begin to explore an idea first ask yourself, “What do I want to explore?” and write about that topic for a page or more. Then read what you have written and ask “So what?” of the ideas expressed so far. Again, write for a page or more. Finally ask yourself, “Now what?” to begin to think about what else you might consider or where you might go next with an idea.
• Defining terms. Although this suggestion is simple and may seem obvious, it is often overlooked. Write definitions for key terms or concepts in your own words. Find others’ articulations of the terms in your course readings, the dictionary, or in conversations, and compare these definitions to your own. Seek input from your instructor if you can’t get a working definition of a term for yourself.
• Summarizing positions. Sometimes it’s helpful to simply describe what you know as a way to solidify your own understanding of something before you try to analyze or synthesize new ideas. You can summarize readings by individual articles or you can combine what you think are like perspectives into a summary of a position. Try to be brief in your description of the readings. Write a paragraph or up to a page describing a reading or a position.
• Metaphor writing. Metaphors or similes are comparisons sometimes using the words “like” or “as.” For example, “writing is like swimming” or the “sky is as blue as map water” or “the keyboard wrinkled with ideas.” When you create a metaphor, you put one idea in terms of another and thereby create a new vision of the original idea. Sometimes it may be easier to create a metaphor or simile may help you understand your view of an idea before you can put it fully into sentences or paragraphs. Write a metaphor or simile and then explain to someone why your metaphor works or what it means to you.
• Applying ideas to personal circumstance or known situations. Sometimes ideas come clearest when you can put them in a frame that is meaningful to you. Take a concept from your reading assignments and apply it so a situation in your own life or to a current event with which you are familiar. You may not end up using this application in your final draft, but applying it to something you know will help you to understand it better and prepare you to analyze the idea as your instructor directs.

Once students have something on the page to work with, they can begin the decision-making process crucial to developing a coherent idea or argument. At this point, students will choose which ideas most appeal to them, which ideas seem to fit together, which ideas need to be set aside, and which ideas need further exploration. The following activities will help students make decisions as they shape ideas:

• Drawing diagrams. Sometimes it helps to look for the shape your ideas seem to be taking as you develop them. Jot down your main ideas on the page and then see if you can connect them in some way. Do they form a square? A circle? An umbrella with spokes coming down? A pyramid? Does one idea seem to sit on a shelf above another idea? Would equal signs, greater or less signs help you express the relationships you see between your idea? Can you make a flow chart depicting the relationships between your ideas?
• Making charts or piles. Try sorting your ideas into separate piles. You can do this literally by putting ideas on note cards or scraps of paper and physically moving them into different piles. You can do this on the page by cutting and pasting ideas into a variety of groups on the computer screen. You can also make charts that illustrate the relationships between ideas. Common charts include timelines, authors sitting around a dinner table, and comparison/contrast charts.
• Scrap pile. Be prepared to keep a scrap pile of ideas somewhere as you work. Some people keep this pile as a separate document as they work; others keep notes at the bottom of a page where they store scrap sentences or thoughts for potential use later on. Remember that it is sometimes important to throw out ideas as a way to clarify and improve the ones you are trying to develop along the way.
• Shifting viewpoints (role-playing). When you begin to feel you have some understanding of your idea, it sometimes helps to look at it from another person’s point of view. You can do this by role-playing someone who disagrees with your conclusions or who has a different set of assumptions about your subject. Make a list or write a dialogue to begin to reveal the other perspective.
• Applying an idea to a new situation. If you have developed a working thesis, test it out by applying it to another event or situation. If you idea is clear, it will probably work again or you will find other supporting instances of your theory.
• Problem/Solution writing. Sometimes it helps to look at your ideas through a problem-solving lens. To do so, first briefly outline the problem as you see it or define it. Make sure you are through in listing all the elements that contribute to the creation of the problem. Next, make a list of potential solutions. Remember there is likely to be more than one solution.
• Theory/application writing. If your assignment asks you to develop a theory or an argument, abstract it from the situation at hand. Does your theory hold through the text? Would it apply to a new situation or can you think of a similar situation that works in the same way? Explain your ideas to a friend.
• Defining critical questions. You may have lots of evidence or information and still feel uncertain what you should do with it or how you should write about it. Look at your evidence and see if you can find repeated information or a repeated missing piece. See if you can write a question or a series of questions that summarize the most important ideas in your paper. Once you have the critical questions, you can begin to organize your ideas around potential answers to the question.
• Explaining/teaching idea to someone else. Sometimes the most efficient way to clarify your ideas is to explain them to someone else. The other person need not be knowledgeable about your subject-in fact it sometimes helps if they aren’t familiar with your topic-but should be willing to listen and interrupt you when he or she doesn’t follow you. As you teach your ideas to someone else, you may begin to have more confidence in the shape of your ideas or you may be able to identify the holes in your argument and be more able to fix them.
• Lining up evidence. If you think you have a good idea of how something works, find evidence in your course material, through research in the library or on the web that supports your thinking. If your ideas are strong, you should find supporting evidence to corroborate your ideas.
• Rewriting idea. Sometimes what helps most is rewriting an idea over the course of several days. Take the central idea and briefly explain it in a paragraph or two. The next day, without looking at the previous day’s writing, write a new paragraph explaining your ideas. Try it again the next day. Over the course of three days, you may find your ideas clarifying, complicating, or developing holes. In all cases, you will have a better idea of what you need to do next in writing your draft.

As students have been working with their ideas, they have been making a series of choices about their ideas that will lead them to feel “ready” to put them in a more complete, coherent form; they will feel “ready to write” their ideas in something closer to the assignment or paper form. But for most, the tough moments of really “writing” begin at this point. They may still feel that they “have ideas” but have trouble “getting them on the page.” Some will suddenly be thrust into “writing a paper” mode and be both constrained and guided by their assumptions about what an assignment asks them to do, what academic writing is, and what prior experience has taught them about writing for teachers. These exercises may ease their entry into shaping their ideas for an assignment:

• Clarify all questions about the assignment. Before you begin writing a draft, make sure you have a thorough understanding of what the assignment requires. You can do this by summarizing your understanding of the assignment and emailing your summary to your TA or instructor. If you have questions about points to emphasize, the amount of evidence needed, etc. get clarification early. You might try writing something like, “I’ve summarized what I think I’m supposed to do in this paper, am I on the right track?
• Write a letter describing what the paper is going to be about. One of the simplest, most efficient exercises you can do to sort through ideas is to write a letter to yourself about what you are planning to write in your paper. You might start out, “My paper is going to be about….” And go on to articulate what evidence you have to back up your ideas, what parts still feel rough to you about your ideas. In about 20 minutes, you can easily have a good sense of what you are ready to write and the problems you still need to solve in your paper.
• Write a full draft. Sometimes you don’t know what you think until you see what you’ve said. Writing a full draft, even if you think the draft has problems, is sometimes important. You may find your thesis appears in your conclusion paragraph.
• Turn your ideas into a five-minute speech. Pretend you have to give a 5 minute speech to your classmates. How would you begin the speech? What’s your main point? What key information would you include? How much detail do you need to give the listener? What evidence will be most convincing or compelling for your audience?
• Make a sketch of the paper. Sometimes it helps to literally line up or order you evidence before you write. You can do so quickly by making a numbered list of your points. Your goal is something like a sketch outline—first I am going to say this; next I need to include this point; third I need to mention this idea. The ideas should flow logically from one point to the next. If they don’t-meaning if you have to backtrack, go on a tangent, or otherwise make the reader wait to see the relationship between ideas, then you need to continue tinkering with the list.
• Make an outline. If you have successfully used formal outlines in the past, use one to structure your paper. If you haven’t successfully used outlines, don’t worry. Try some of the other techniques listed here to get your ideas on the page
• Start with the easiest part. If you have trouble getting started on a draft, write what feels to you like the easiest part first. There’s nothing magic about starting at the beginning-unless that’s the easiest part for you. Write what you know for sure and a beginning will probably emerge as you write.
• Write the body of the paper first. Sometimes it’s helpful NOT to write the beginning or introductory paragraph first. See what you have to say in the bulk of your draft and then go back to craft a suitable beginning.
• Write about feelings about writing. Sometimes it’s helpful to begin a writing session by spending 5-10 minutes writing to yourself about your feelings about the assignment. Doing so can help you set aside uncertainty and frustration and help you get motivated to write your draft.
• Write with the screen turned off. If you are really stuck getting starting or in the middle of a draft, turn the monitor off and type your ideas. Doing so will prevent you from editing and critiquing your writing as you first produce it. You may be amazed at the quantity and quality of ideas you can produce in a short time. You’ll have to do some cleanup on the typos, but it may be well worth it if it allows you to bang out a draft.
• Write in alternatives (postpone decision-making). You may need to test out more than one idea before you settle into a particular direction for a paper. It’s actually more efficient to spend time writing in several directions i.e. trying out one idea for awhile, then trying out another idea, than it is to try to fit all of your ideas into one less coherent draft. Your writing may take the form of brief overviews that begin, “If I were going to write about XYZ idea, I would…” until you are able to see which option suits the assignment and your needs.
• Write with a timer. Sometimes what you need most is to get all of your ideas out on paper in a single sitting. To do so, pretend you are taking an essay exam. Set a timer for an appropriate amount of time (1 hour? 3 hours?) depending on the length of your draft. Assume that it will take you approximately 1 hour per page of text you produce. Set a goal for the portion of your draft you must complete during the allotted time and don’t get up from your seat until the timer goes off.

As students use language to shape ideas, they begin to feel the need to test their ideas or move beyond their own perspectives. Sometimes we have ideas that make good sense to us, but seem to lose or confuse readers as we voice them in conversation or on the page. Once students have a complete draft of a paper, they need ways to share their ideas to learn points where their ideas need further development. With feedback from an audience, students are better able to see the final decisions they still need to make in order for their ideas to reach someone. These decisions may be ones of word choice, organization, logic, evidence, and tone. Keep in mind that this juncture can be unsettling for some students. Having made lots of major decisions in getting their ideas down on the page, they may be reluctant to tackle another round of decision-making required for revising or clarifying ideas or sentences. Remind students that ideas don’t exist apart from words, but in the words themselves. They will need to be able to sell their ideas through the words and arrangement of words on the page for a specific audience.

• Talk your paper. Tell a friend what your paper is about. Pay attention to your explanation. Are all of the ideas you describe actually in the paper? Where did you start explaining your ideas? Does your paper match your description? Can the listener easily find all of the ideas you mention in your description?
• Ask someone to read your paper out loud to you. Ask a friend to read your draft out loud to you. What do you hear? Where does your reader stumble? Sound confused? Have questions? Did your reader ever get lost in your text? Did ideas flow in the order the reader expected them to? Was anything missing for the reader? Did the reader need more information at any point?
• Share your draft with your instructor. If you give them enough notice, most instructors will be willing to read a draft of a paper. It sometimes helps to include your own assessment of the draft when you share it with a teacher. Give them your assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the draft, as you see it, to begin a conversation.
• Share your draft with a classmate. Arrange to exchange papers with a classmate several days before the due date. You can do so via email and make comments for revision using Word’s comment function.
• Look at your sentences. Often you will need to analyze your draft of the sentence level. To do so, break your paper into a series of discrete sentences by putting a return after each period or end punctuation. Once you have your paper as a list of sentences, you can more easily see and solve sentence level problems. Try reading the sentences starting with the last sentence of the draft and moving up. Doing so will take them out of context and force you to see them as individual bits of communication rather than familiar points.
• Discuss key terms in your paper with someone else. After you have completed a draft, it’s sometimes helpful to look back at the key terms you are using to convey your ideas. It’s easy, in the midst of thinking about an idea, to write in loaded language or code in which certain key words come to have special meaning for you that isn’t necessarily shared by a reader. If you suspect this is the case, talk about your key terms with a friend, and ask them to read your draft to see if the idea is adequately explained for the reader.
• Outline your draft. After you have a complete draft, go back and outline what you have said. Next to each paragraph write a word or phrase that summarizes the content of that paragraph. You might also look to see if you have topic sentences that convey the ideas of individual paragraphs. If you can’t summarize the content of a paragraph, you probably have multiple ideas in play in that paragraph that may need revising. Once you have summarized each paragraph, turn your summary words into a list. How does the list flow? Is it clear how one idea connects to the next?
• Underline your main point. Highlight the main point of your paper. It should probably be (although it will depend on the assignment) in one sentence somewhere on the first page. If it’s not, the reader will likely be lost and wondering what you paper is about as he or she reads through it. Your draft should not read like a mystery novel in which the reader has to wait until the end to have all the pieces fit together.
• Ask someone without knowledge of the course to read your paper. You can tell if your draft works by sharing it with someone outside of the context. If they can follow your ideas, someone inside the class will be able to as well.
• Ask a reader to judge specific elements of your paper. Share your draft with someone and ask them to read for something specific i.e. organization, punctuation, transitions. A reader will give more specific feedback to you if you give them some specific direction.

Implementing exercises

Many of these exercises can be used in short in-class writing assignments, as part of group work, or as incremental steps in producing a paper. If you’ve assigned an end-of-semester term paper, you may want to assign one or two activities from each of the four stages-brainstorming, organizing, drafting, editing-at strategic points throughout the semester. You could also give the students the list of exercises for each stage and ask them to choose one or two activities to complete at each point as they produce a draft.

If you’d like to discuss how these exercises might work in your course, talk about other aspects of student writing, contact Kimberly Abels [email protected] at the Writing Center.

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

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10 Creative Writing Activities That Help Students Tell Their Stories

Lower the stakes and help them get started.

“I don’t have a story. There’s nothing interesting about my life!” Sound familiar? I don’t know a teacher who hasn’t heard students say this. When we ask our students to write about themselves, they get stuck. We know how important it is for them to tell their own stories. It’s how we explore our identities and keep our histories and cultures alive. It can even be dangerous when we don’t tell our stories (check out this Ted Talk given by novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and share it with your students for more on that). Storytelling is essential for every subject, not just English Language Arts; students dive deeper and engage when they practice thinking about how their own stories intersect with historical events, civic engagement, and the real-world implications of STEM. These 10 creative writing activities can work in every subject you teach:

Here are 10 of our favorite story telling activities that inspire students:

1. write an “i am from” poem.

Students read the poem “I am From” by George Ella Lyon. Then, they draft a poem about their own identity in the same format Lyon used. Finally, students create a video to publish their poems. We love this one because the mentor text gives a clear structure and example that students can follow. But the end result is truly unique, just like their story.

2. Design a social media post to share an important memory

How can you use your unique perspective to tell a story? We want our students to learn that they are truly unique and have stories that only they can tell that other people want to hear or could relate to or learn from. In this activity, students watch two Pixar-in-a-Box videos on Khan Academy to learn about storytelling and perspective. Then, they identify an interesting or poignant memory and design a social media post.

3. Create an image using a line to chart an emotional journey

How do you show emotion using a single line? In this activity, students watch a Pixar in a Box video on Khan Academy to learn about how lines communicate character, emotion, and tension. Then they experiment with these aspects as they write their story. We love using this for pre-writing and to help students explore their story arc. Also, for students who love to draw or learn visually, this can help them get started telling their story and show them that there are many different ways to tell a story.

4. Tell the story behind your name

Sharing the story behind our name is a way to tell a story about ourselves, our culture, and our family history. And if there isn’t a story behind it, we can talk about how we feel about it and describe what it sounds like. In this activity, students use video to introduce themselves to their classmates by discussing the origin of their name. This project asks students to connect their names (and identities) to their personal and familial histories and to larger historical forces. If you’re looking for a mentor text that pairs well with this one, try “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros .

5. Develop a visual character sketch

Give students the time to create a character sketch of themselves. This will help them see how they fit into their story. In this lesson, students create a visual character sketch. They’ll treat themselves like a character and learn to see themselves objectively.

6. Create a webpage to outline the story of your movie

Building a story spine is a great way to show students how to put the parts of their story in an order that makes sense. It’s an exercise in making choices about structure. We like this activity because it gives students a chance to see different examples of structure in storytelling. Then, they consider the question: how can you use structure to set your story up for success? Finally, they design and illustrate an outline for their story.

7. Respond to a variety of writing prompts

Sometimes our students get stuck because they aren’t inspired or need a different entry point into telling their story. Give them a lot of writing prompts that they can choose from. Pass out paper and pencils. Set a timer for fifteen minutes. Then, write 3-4 writing prompts on the board. Encourage students to free-write and not worry about whether their ideas are good or right. Some of our favorite prompts to encourage students to tell their story are:

• I don’t know why I remember…
• What’s your favorite place and why?
• What objects tell the story of your life?
• What might surprise someone to learn about you?

8. Create a self-portrait exploring identity and self-expression

Part of what makes writing your own story so difficult for students is that they are just building their identity. In this activity, students explore how they and others define their identity. What role does identity play in determining how they are perceived and treated by others? What remains hidden and what is shown publicly?

9. Film a video to share an important story from your life

Encourage students to think about how to tell the story of a day they faced their fears. Students consider the question: How can you use different shot types to tell your story? They watch a video from Pixar in a Box on Khan Academy to learn about different camera shots and their use in storytelling. Then, they use Adobe Spark Post or Photoshop and choose three moments from their story to make into shots. We love using this to help students think about pace and perspective. Sometimes what we leave out of our story is just as important as what we include.

10. Try wild writing

Laurie Powers created a process where you read a poem and then select two lines from it. Students start their own writing with one of those lines. Anytime that they get stuck, they repeat their jump-off line again. This is a standalone activity or a daily writing warm-up, and it works with any poem. We love how it lowers the stakes. Can’t think of anything to write? Repeat the jump-off line and start again. Here are some of our favorite jump-off lines:

• The truth is…
• Some people say…
• Here’s what I forgot to tell you…
• Some questions have no answers…
• Here’s what I’m afraid to write about…

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Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, interesting writing assignments that take students beyond the essay.

How many five-paragraph essays do students write in their school career? A lot . How many standardized tests require an essay? Most of them . How many essays will students need to write after college? Eh, probably not that many. Essays have their function, but they’re certainly not the only academically rigorous form of writing, nor are they the sole way students can demonstrate their learning, thinking, or writing skills. Shake things up for your students and try something new with these five writing assignments.

Learning to Write

Students need to learn how to write. That’s not debatable. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress for writing, 75% of both 12th- and eighth-graders lack proficiency in writing. The New York Times reported last year that “Common Core State Standards, now in use in more than two-thirds of the states, were supposed to change all this. By requiring students to learn three types of essay writing — argumentative, informational, and narrative — the Core staked a claim for writing as central to the American curriculum. It represented a sea change after the era of No Child Left Behind, the 2002 federal law that largely overlooked writing in favor of reading comprehension assessed by standardized multiple-choice tests.” So with all of this incessant essay work, why are students still struggling? One reason, it could be argued, is that the over essay-ification of writing instruction has sucked the life out of writing practice and scaffolded the process so much that students can’t see beyond the rigid structure. When writing is taught as a formula, students fail to discover that their writing can truly engage readers,” says Tricia Ebarvia , an English educator in Pennsylvania. “And they have little chance to fall in love with writing, to feel how fun it can be, and to see how writing can help them solve problems and figure things out.” It sure seems like we can bring back some of the magic of writing without losing all the rigor. Let’s try.

Argument and Interpretation: Student Anthologies

Engage your students to become curators in creating their own anthologies. A popular staple of the Humanities, anthologies pull together collections of artwork, essays, poems, stories, etc., and students get to play editor, defending and explaining their choices. Anthologies can include typical book parts like a cover, title pages, table of contents, prologue, and epilogue. The Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching suggests that “Giving students guidance for their editorial responses to each selection is helpful. Some possibilities include the following:

• Argue for its significance
• Interpret its meaning
• Describe its historical and cultural context
• Write a biographical headnote using details most relevant to the selection
• Explain how it illustrates an important disciplinary theory or concept.”

Format and Content: Rewriting an Article

Often students get saddled by having to not only create original content but manage to learn and imitate a format. Help your students practice informational writing by rewriting and building upon an existing article. ”By rearranging how facts are presented, using a different title, and even bringing in additional facts and quotations from further research, they’ll see how this reworking can significantly change the tone and give readers a different perspective on the same topic,” says Rebecca Alber , faculty at UCLA_CenterX .

Writing Construction: Structure and Sequence

John Warner , author of Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities , notes that one of the best writing assignments he ever did was in third grade. His teacher asked the class to write a how-to on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then the class would try to make a sandwich live following the written instructions exactly word for word . Students, of course, would leave out things they expected would be obvious. For example, if they instructed their readers to spread peanut butter onto the bread, but didn’t mention a knife, things could get problematic. “That day, I learned that writers need to be careful with their words because if someone is asked to follow them, things can go very, very wrong.” says Warner. “Mrs. Goldman was teaching us a number of different things: genre awareness, audience, structure, and sequencing. None of it had anything to do with a standardized assessment. We were solving a writing-related problem. Most of all, we were absorbing the lesson that, above all, writing is done for audiences.” This is an especially useful assignment for English language learners!

Narrative Writing: Ethos, Pathos, Logos

In this exercise, students will go beyond the persuasive or narrative essay’s bland and formulaic construct to truly appeal to their reader. First, teach the basics. Chicago high school writing teacher Ray Salazar urges teachers to break down the rhetorical elements like this:

• “Ethos: the speaker’s/writer’s credibility
• Pathos: connecting with the audience’s emotions
• Logos: presenting information to make the audience think”

Next, he suggests watching a few speeches, and perhaps reading along, to allow students to see how the speakers/writers appealed to their audiences. Then, it’s time to get students writing. Using the Common Application prompts, he asks students to consider how to appeal to their audience, engage in freewriting, and then add sensory elements and deepen their descriptions. The writing process deepens with each iteration.

Creative Writing: Get Outside and Observe

Good writing is in the details, right? And many writers struggle with showing, instead of telling. Bring your students outside of the classroom — the schoolyard or just outside will do! — and inspire them to report on what they see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. “This outdoor writing activity is all about teaching your students how to describe things properly. Take a little walk with your students just outside the classroom. It doesn’t have to be far, but it should be somewhere that has plenty of different items for the students to choose from. Tell each student to pick one object and describe it in detail. Students should describe every curve, every scratch, every color, and every texture in their chosen item. Once the descriptions are written, have the students pair up. Then, have the students take turns guessing which object the other student wrote about based solely on the description. Read more on Outdoor Writing .

To dive deeper into the subject of writing and literacy, check out our Adolescent Literacy program.

Jennifer L.M. Gunn spent 10 years in newspaper and magazine publishing before moving to public education. She is a curriculum designer, a teaching coach, and high school educator in New York City. She is also co-founder of the annual EDxEDNYC Education Conference for teacher-led innovation and regularly presents at conferences on the topics of adolescent literacy, leadership, and education innovation.

You may also like to read

• How Teachers Can Increase the Impact of Essay Writing for Students
• 5 Ways to Exercise Essay Writing for Elementary Students
• Writing into Summer: Creative Assignments Can Keep Students Academically Engaged
• Examples of Outdoor Activities to Get Your Students Writing
• Current Events Assignments for Elementary Students
• How to Strengthen Students' Analytical Skills Outside of a Writing Assignment

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

Tagged as: Assessment Tools ,  Curriculum and Instruction ,  Early Childhood and Elementary (Grades: PreK-5) ,  ESOL ,  High School (Grades: 9-12) ,  Language Arts ,  Mid-Career Teacher ,  Middle School (Grades: 6-8) ,  New Teacher ,  Veteran Teacher

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55 Creative Writing Activities and Exercises

Have you ever heard these questions or statements from your students?

• I don’t know where to begin.
• How can I make my story interesting?
• I’m just not creative.
• What should my story be about?

If so, you won’t want to miss these creative writing activities. 

What Are Creative Writing Activities?

Activities that teach creative writing serve as drills to exercise your student’s writing muscle. When used effectively, they help reluctant writers get past that intimidating blank paper and encourage the words to flow. 

When I think of creative writing exercises , writing prompts immediately come to mind. And, yes, writing from a prompt is certainly an example of a creative writing activity (a highly effective one). 

However, writing prompts are only one way to teach creative writing. Other types of activities include games, collaboration with others, sensory activities, and comic strip creation to name a few.

Unlike writing assignments, creative writing activities aren’t necessarily meant to create a perfectly polished finished project. 

Instead, they serve as more of a warmup and imagination boost.

Picture-based writing exercises are especially fun. You can download one for free below!

get this picture prompt printable for free!

How to use creative writing exercises effectively.

When teaching creative writing , the most effective exercises inspire and engage the student. 

Remember that worn-out prompt your teacher probably hauled out every year? 

“What I Did This Summer…” 

Cue the groaning. 

Instead of presenting your student with lackluster topics like that one, let’s talk about ways to engage and excite them. 

For Kids or Beginners

Early writers tend to possess misconceptions about writing. Many picture sitting down for hours straight, polishing a story from beginning to end. 

Even for experienced writers, this is next-to-impossible to do. It’s preconceived ideas like these that overwhelm and discourage students before they’ve even started. 

Instead of assigning an essay to complete, start with simple, short writing exercises for elementary students such as:

• Creating comic strips using a template
• Talking out loud about a recent dream
• Writing a poem using rhyming words you provide
• Creating an acrostic from a special word

Creative writing exercises don’t have to end in a finished piece of work. If the exercise encouraged creative thinking and helped the student put pen to paper, it’s done its job. 

For Middle School

Creative writing activities for middle school can be a little more inventive. They now have the fundamental reading and writing skills to wield their words properly. 

Here are some ideas for middle school writing exercises you can try at home:

• Creating Mad Lib-style stories by changing out nouns, verbs, and adjectives in their favorite tales
• Storyboarding a short film
• Writing a family newsletter
• Creating crossword puzzles

For High School 

Your high school student may be starting to prepare for college essays and other important creative writing assignments. 

It’s more critical than ever for her to exercise her writing skills on a regular basis. 

One great way to keep your high schooler’s mind thinking creatively is to have her make “listicles” of tips or facts about something she’s interested in already. 

Another fun and effective creative writing exercise for high school is to have your student retell classic stories with a twist. 

List of 55 Creative Writing Activities for Students of All Ages

No matter what age range your students may be, I think you’ll find something that suits their personality and interests in this list of creative writing ideas. Enjoy! 

• Using only the sense of hearing, describe your surroundings. 
• Write a paragraph from your shoes’ point of view. How do they view the world? What does a “day in the life of a shoe” look like?
• Imagine what the world will be like in 200 years. Describe it. 
• Write a letter to someone you know who moved away. What has he or she missed? Should he or she move back? Why? 
• Make up an imaginary friend. What does he or she look like? What does he or she like to do?
• Create a story about a person you know. Use as many details as possible.
• Write a poem that describes a place you have been.
• Soak up the season you’re in with seasonal creative writing prompts. Here are some ideas for fall and winter .
• Write a song where each line starts with the next letter in the alphabet. 
• Create a list of words related to something you love.
• Write a short story based on a true event in your life.
• Rewrite a chapter of your favorite book from the antagonist’s point of view. 
• Write a letter to your future self. What do you want to make sure you remember?
• Go on a five-senses scavenger hunt. Find three items for each sense. Create a story using the items you found. 
• Create a story around an interesting picture ( try these fun picture writing prompts! )
• Find an ad in a magazine or elsewhere and rewrite the description to convince people NOT to buy the advertised item.
• Write a story using the last word of each sentence as the first word of the next.
• Describe everything you’re sensing right now, using all five senses.
• Write a list of animals A to Z with a one-sentence description of each one. Feel free to include imaginary animals.
• Design your dream room in detail.
• Write a script of yourself interviewing a famous person. Include his or her answers.
• Describe what high school would be like if you lived on the moon. What would you be learning about? How would you be learning it?
• Describe a day in the life of a famous person in history. Include both mundane and exciting details of things they may have experienced on a normal day.
• Pick up something on a bookshelf or end table nearby. Now write a commercial script for it to convince your audience that they absolutely must own this thing.
• Plan a birthday party for your best friend. Describe the decorations, food, and everything else.
• Write a very short story about three siblings fighting over a toy. Now rewrite it twice, each time from a different character’s perspective.
• Tell a story from the point of view of a pigeon on a city street.
• Create a menu for a deli you’ll be opening soon. Name each sandwich after something or someone in real life and list the fillings and type of bread.
• Pretend you just became famous for something. Write 3 exciting newspaper headlines about the topic or reason behind your newfound fame.
• Keep a one-line-a-day journal. Every day, write down one thought or sentence about something that happened that day or how you felt about the day.
• Have you ever had a nightmare? Write what happened but with a new ending where everything turns out okay (perhaps the monster was your dad in a costume, preparing to surprise you at your birthday party).
• Write a “tweet” about something that happened to you recently, using only 140 characters. 
• Take an important event in your life or the life of someone in your family. Write one sentence answering each of the 6 journalistic questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
• Set a timer for 5 minutes and write nonstop, starting with the words “I remember.” If you get stuck, write “I remember” again until you get unstuck.
• Pick something you use often (a toothbrush, your desk, etc). Then tell the story of how it was invented. If you don’t know, make something up.
• Choose a princess or hero and write a one-paragraph story about him or her traveling to a distant land.
• Pretend you are a tour guide for a local attraction. It can be a library, a park, or a museum, but it could also be a place that wouldn’t normally hold tours (such as an arcade). Write a speech about what you tell your tour group as you walk around the attraction.
• Create a marketing brochure for your favorite activity or fun place to go.
• Make a list of 10 future story settings. Write one sentence describing each. For example, “ in the dark, musty cellar of my grandmother’s house, surrounded by dried-up jars of canned peaches… ”
• Make a list of foods included in a dinner party catered by the world’s worst cook, describing how each course looks, smells, and tastes. Include your reactions while eating it.
• Write out your own version of instructions for playing your favorite game.
• Pretend you’ve lost your sight for one night. Describe going out to eat at a restaurant, using smells, textures, and sounds to tell your story.
• Write a script for an interesting phone conversation in which the reader can only hear one side. 
• Tell the story of an object someone threw away from the perspective of the person who tossed it out. Then tell the story of that same object from the perspective of a person who finds it and deems it a treasure.
• List your 3 least favorite chores. Pick one and write a one paragraph detailing why you can’t possibly complete that chore ever again.
• Write an excerpt from your dog’s diary (pretend he keeps one).
• Write the script for a movie trailer—real or imagined.
• Create an acrostic for a holiday of your choice. 
• Pretend you’re the master of a role-playing game, describing a sticky situation in which the other players now find themselves. Describe the scenario in writing.
• Compose a funny or dramatic caption for a photo.
• Parents, place a textured object in a box without letting your student see it. Have him or her reach in, touch the object, and then describe how it feels.
• Write lyrics for a parody of a song.
• Make a list of 10-20 songs that would be played if a movie was made about your life.
• Describe the sounds, smells, sights, and textures you’d experience if you went to the beach for the day.
• Write an election speech with ludicrous and impossible campaign promises.

One of the best ways to encourage students to write regularly is by providing fun creative writing activities . 

They serve to encourage both the habit and mindset of writing with imagination. If you need extra help with that, check out Creative Freewriting Adventure :

bring excitement into your student’s writing – no prep required!

About the author.

Jordan Mitchell

• Sustainability

Ten Bates professors share their favorite writing assignments

By Emily McConville — Published on January 30, 2019

The students’ assignment: Write an op-ed about lead poisoning in Lewiston-Auburn. Or write a caption for a photo, or text about a campus tree. Write about how strange quantum theory is, or write a competitive book review in Japanese.

Their professors’ goal: Through solid writing, get students to persuade or inform. Help them understand the course material, whether it’s mathematics, environmental studies, or history. Get them to consider their own writing mistakes, or build up to a larger project.

Your assignment: Read about these 10 professors’ all-time favorite writing assignments, which they presented to their colleagues in the fall. What’s your favorite?

Biblio Battle Project

Instructor : Keiko Konoeda, Lecturer in Japanese

Course : “Advanced Japanese II”

Lecturer in Japanese Keiko Konoeda teaches a section of Beginning Japanese I. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Assignment : Each student writes a book review in Japanese, then turns that review into an oral presentation for the class. After each presentation, students discuss the book, and at the end, the participants vote for the book they most want to read. The assignment was inspired by  Biblio Battles, a popular form of competition created by researchers at Kyoto University in Japan.

Why she likes the assignment : “I believe in combining writing and speaking, especially in the context of language courses, I also like to make writing assignments not only to develop writing expertise, but as a stepping stone to developing speaking. Many adult learners who learn a language in the classroom tend to develop writing before they become more comfortable in speaking.”

Op-Ed on Lead in Lewiston

Instructor : William Wallace, Lecturer in Education

Course : “The Environment and Social Justice,” First-Year Seminar

Assignment : First, write a two-page essay comparing and contrasting the issue of lead paint in Lewiston-Auburn neighborhoods with the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich. Then, write a newspaper-style op-ed about the lead paint issue, using an op-ed about the Flint water crisis as an example. 

As they geared up to turn in their final op-eds, Wallace’s students received help from, among others, Karyn Butts of the  Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention; former American Cultural Studies lecturer Christopher Petrella, and Lewiston Sun Journal reporter Lindsay Tice. 

Why he likes the assignment : In their course evaluations, the students “said it was one of the highlights of the semester for them, because they felt like they were learning a new skill they didn’t know before. They knew how to write, but this was a type of persuasive writing that was politically active and important to them.”

Faulty Sentence

Instructor: Myra Wright, Lecturer in English

Course : “Reading Cats & Dogs,” First-Year Seminar

Lecturer in English Myra Wright teaches a section of “The Literary Insect,” her 2017 First-Year Seminar. This fall, she taught “Reading Cats and Dogs” to first-year students. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Assignment : Students submitted a one-sentence analysis of the John Keats poem “To Mrs. Reynolds’ Cat” — but made sure the sentence contained one writing error the professor corrected in previous coursework. The class then discussed each sentence, complimenting each other’s writing, identifying the error, and discussing solutions.

Wright was inspired by Associate Professor of Politics Leslie Hill, who had told her about a similar process of identifying errors with her students.

Why she likes the assignment : “It allows me to be a real stickler but also make more friendly the work of doing excellent editing at an investigative, imaginative, and critical level.”

What Makes an Expert?

Instructor : Adriana Salerno, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Course : “Calculus I” (largely taken by non-math majors)

Assignment : Read “What Makes an Expert?” from Ken Bain’s What the Best College Students Do , then write an essay connecting the reading to your experience of taking the midterm exam. Address which example of an expert from Bain’s chapter resonated with you, the approaches to learning you take, and how you can improve your performance in the class.

Why she likes the assignment : I have so many students who are like, ‘I’m so bad at math, I’m not very good at this, I’m just here because I have to be.’ There’s a lot of that anxiety coming into a class like Calc I. This helps them think of how these experiences can be transferred to other things.  … This kind of work, understanding that writing is also thinking and processing, gets them to do certain things that are really helpful in math.”

Natural History of a Tree

Instructor : Brett Huggett, Assistant Professor of Biology

Course : “Dendrology and the Natural History of Trees”

In 2015, Julia Fisher ’16 (right) of Philadelphia and Samantha Purnell ’18 of Portland, Ore., measure a tree on the Historic Quad. Their data was part of a webpage documenting the various species of campus trees. (Josh Kuckens/Bates College)

Assignment : Photograph and write a short essay about one campus tree species. Then, tag each tree with a small plate indicating the species name, family, and a QR code linking to a webpage with the student’s pictures and natural history essay.

Why he likes the assignment : “Writing is heavily emphasized in biology. Students are well-trained in the structure of scientific writing and the format of abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion. I felt there was a niche to create a writing assignment that asked students to write for the general public and step out of the framework of the rigid scientific structure.”

Toward a Philosophy of Nonviolence

Instructor : Stacy Smith, Lecturer in the Humanities

Course : “The Roots of Nonviolence,” First-Year Seminar

Assignment : Having read three texts that influenced Martin Luther King Jr. at the time of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, write a letter to King about these texts, asking King what you want to ask him and saying what you want to say. Use King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or James Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew” as a model. Alternatively, write a prose essay using as a model King’s chapter entitled “My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” from his book Stride Toward Freedom .

Why she likes the assignment : “I am really interested in cultivating student voice. I feel like I was quite successful as a student, and throughout my academic career, writing in a way where I wasn’t really there. What I’m interested in at this stage of my teaching career is cultivating the ‘alive’ human being, within the student and the teacher, in an academic setting. The personal is intellectual, and the intellectual is personal. This assignment is capturing that.”

Thinking About a Research Paper

Instructor : Joe Hall, Associate Professor of History

Course : “Maine Environment and History”

Associate Professor of History Joe Hall delivers the 2018 Convocation address in August. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Assignment : In no more than four pages, explain how two works are helping you think about your 20-page research paper. Put the works in dialogue with each other. The grade on the final research paper replaces the grade on this preliminary assignment, if the final paper is better. 

Why he likes the assignment : “The most useful element of the paper as a writing assignment was that it enabled me to tell all of them, because all of them needed to do this, how to use transitions to make an argument that consists of more than one piece. For a research paper, that is absolutely fundamental. Often, the single piece of advice I give my students for all of their papers is, ‘You have a really good summary of this piece and a really good summary of that piece. Tell me why they’re part of the same paper.’ That transition is where your argument is, and now you have an essay.”

Reflective Writing in Quantum Chemistry

Instructor : Lynn Mandeltort, Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Course : “Quantum Chemistry” (mostly upper-level chemistry majors)

Assignment : Write two responses — a paragraph at the beginning of the semester, several pages at the end — to the strangeness of quantum theory, but also accurately describe quantum theory. “Construct concise, specific, logical prose connecting the ideas we have discussed thus far, while tying in your own experience.”

Why she likes the assignment : “In these technically based courses, students can go through the motions and give you an answer and not tell you why it matters or if that answer makes sense. What good is science then? … Writing is something you to do communicate broadly and make sure you understand something in a course like chemistry.”

Lewiston Triptych

Instructor : Jane Costlow, Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies

Course : “Lives in Place” (mostly first-year and sophomore non-majors)

Assignment : Read an essay on how nature is embedded in urban spaces, even if we don’t recognize it as nature. Draw or photograph a material object at Museum L-A in downtown Lewiston, and take a picture of “nature” in Lewiston. Caption the photograph with a quote from the essay, and write a 300-word essay that connects the museum object and the photograph, offering a reflection on nature in L-A.

Why she likes the assignment : “These are wonderful essays about Lewiston-Auburn. If there’s not enough writing about Lewiston-Auburn, maybe my students can be doing some of that writing.”

Podcast Guest Profile

Instructor : Michael Sargent, Associate Professor of Psychology

Course : “Searching for the Good Life,” First-Year Seminar

Pictured in 2014, Associate Professor of Psychology Michael Sargent hosts a storytelling event he founded. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Assignment : To prepare for a group project involving making a podcast about an interesting person’s work, write a profile of your subject — focusing not on broad biographical details, but on specific aspects of their work. Develop one or two questions the work raises for you.

For example,  students in the group interviewing a former deputy chief of staff to the U.S. Secretary of Defense wrote about such topics as a documentary film the deputy produced, women in the Department of Defense, and artificial intelligence.

Why he likes the assignment : Full disclosure, “this is not my favorite assignment,” Sargent says. “I used to have them write their own eulogy, and I’m really lucky that did not blow up in my face, at least to the best of my knowledge. I’ve dropped that assignment. I’m not taking any more chances.”

This assignment, however, was “ writing in the service of some other purpose, and that made it come to life for them. They weren’t just writing for the sake of writing, valuable as it is. They were writing because they saw this as essential to help them get ready for these interviews.”

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73 ESL Writing Activities

From a student’s point of view, writing assignments are something to dread.

But from an ESL teacher’s point of view, they should be a challenge worth accepting.

The challenge for you is to motivate your students enough to actually be excited about writing.

Sounds impossible? It’s actually quite simple.

The key is a strong pre-writing activity that boosts their confidence and adds to their vocabulary at the same time.

So, how do you get your students’ writing off to a great start?

In this post, we’ll look at some different ESL writing activities that will transform your students from hesitant writers to confident wordsmiths in their own right.

Writing Assignments Based on Stories

Writing activities prompted by music, writing practice exercises based on images or pictures, writing assignments based on food, writing activities based on mysteries, exercises to practice writing emails, activities to practice writing advertisements, assignments to practice writing reports, creative writing activity: class newsletter/newspaper.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

People of all ages love a well-told story, and using stories to teach ESL is a sure winner.

A story for a pre-writing activity could be in the form of:

• A  movie . It could be a biography, sci-fi film, thriller, action-packed adventure, fairy tale or even a cartoon.
• A  story read aloud from a book. If you’re using this, read in a way that brings the characters’ voices to life (including the narrator’s), hold the book up to show any pictures within or scan them and project onto a screen as you read. You can also search YouTube videos of famous authors or celebrities reading a book aloud, and show these in class.
• A  story from the news . It could be from the TV, radio, newspaper or an online news site .
• A story read by your students. In this case, you could let them read a story silently or with a partner, and take as long as they like to think about the important parts.

No matter what you choose, it’ll be a great lead-in to the ESL writing exercises below.

1. Re-tell the story as is, or summarize it. (This works best for beginners, who are still getting their feet wet in the waters of English comprehension.)

2. After watching “Finding Nemo” : Tell the story from the point of view of the whale, the dentist’s daughter or Bruce the shark.

3. Explain to Marlin how he should take care of Nemo better.

4. Make up a story about a farm animal/zoo animal/jungle animal. What if a baby ___ was lost? What if a child was lost in the city? What if you found a lost child?

5. After the story of “Goldilocks” : Tell the story from the baby bear’s point of view.

6. What if the baby bear and Goldilocks became best buds? What would happen?

7. After discussing “The Gingerbread Man” : Tell the story from the fox’s or gingerbread man’s point of view.

8. What did the old woman do wrong that made the gingerbread man run away?

9. How do you make a gingerbread man? What other shapes could be made instead?

10. After “Little Red Riding Hood” : Write the story in the first person—from the point of view of either Red Riding Hood or the wolf.

11. What should Red Riding Hood have done when she met the wolf?

12. After watching a “Lord of the Rings” movie: What would you do if you had the One Ring? Write about a magical quest you and several friends would have if you could.

13. After watching a “Pirates of the Caribbean”  movie: What if you were a pirate? What adventures would you have if you were a pirate?

14. After watching “Titanic” : Write about what you discover when you dive onto the wreck. Or imagine you were on the ship when it sank, and talk about how you escaped.

15. Whose fault was it that so many people drowned on the Titanic? What should they have done?

16. After watching a “Star Wars”  movie: Imagine you’re a space explorer and write about what happens when you meet some characters from “Star Wars.”

17. After watching a “Terminator”  movie: Imagine your teacher is a robot that has come back from the future. Or imagine you have come back from the future—what would it be like?

18. After watching a “Harry Potter” movie: Make up some magic spells and explain how you’d use them.

Everybody loves music! Watch your students’ faces light up as soon as they realize that they’re about to be treated to some songs rather than chalk-and-talk. Music stirs the emotions, after all, and can get your students excited about writing.

Here are some ideas for music you can incorporate into ESL writing activities:

• Classical music. There are some pieces of well-known classical music that specifically tell a story , and many of these are available on YouTube.
• “Fantasia 2000,” particularly “Rhapsody in Blue.” This wonderful, wordless animated story can kick off so much great writing!
• Movie music. The music that goes with a movie tells watchers how they should be feeling, and could be a good jumping-off point for some writing.
• Popular songs and music. Self-explanatory. Check out the most popular or trending artists on YouTube or Spotify for ideas.
• Kids’ songs . There’s something about singing a catchy little tune that makes the words stick in your mind more than just saying them. These can lead to some interesting writing, too.

19. After Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” : Tell the story from Peter’s point of view.

20. After Saint-Saëns’ “The Carnival of the Animals” : Imagine walking through the scenes with the animals and interacting with them. Write a story from the point of view of one of the animals.

21. Describe the animals in “The Carnival of the Animals.”

22. After Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” : Re-tell this classic Shakespeare story, adding a twist.

23. After watching and listening to “Rhapsody in Blue” : Tell all/part of the story.

24. If you were the main character in “Rhapsody in Blue,” what would you do?

25. Listen to a piece of classical/instrumental music and tell the story that it might be a background to. Imagine that it’s the background music for a movie.

26. Tell the story (real or made up) behind some popular songs like Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams.”

27. Describe meeting someone special like in the aforementioned Taylor Swift song.

28. What happens in your wildest dreams?

29. What if you were a famous pop star or musician? What would it be like? What would you do?

30. Give instructions on how to find your favorite song on the Internet, both music and lyrics.

31. If you play an instrument, or have a relative who plays one, write about some of the basics of how to play. (This could also work as a speaking and listening activity, and then the whole class could write about it.)

32. What is your favorite genre of music, and why? (Be sure to explain what “genre” means !)

33. Do you think young children should be allowed to freely watch music videos?

Some pictures you can use for ESL writing activities include:

• Pictures from social media. If you use social media at all, you doubtless have a barrage of amazing photos and videos on your feed, all of which make for excellent writing prompts.
• Pictures from Google Images . A quick Google search on any (classroom-safe) image will turn up plenty.
• Cartoons . If you have young students, they’ll definitely enjoy this one.
• Pictures selected by your students. Not sure what to choose? Have your students pick their own pictures to write about. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how vibrant their writing can be when they’re writing about subjects they actually care about.

Regardless of the picture you (or your students) choose, here are some writing prompts you can consider.

34. Tell a story—real or imagined—of what is happening in the picture.

35. Write about what happens next from the pictured moment.

36. Write about what was happening just before the pictured incident.

37. What if that was you in the picture?

38. What if you were the person who took the picture?

39. What if you knew the people in the picture? What would you say to them?

40. Describe all of the elements in the picture. This is great for vocabulary practice.

41. Describe how someone in the picture might be feeling.

42. Explain how to get into  a pictured predicament (for example, in the picture here , how did he get into the boat without the crocodile eating him?) as well as how to get out of it.

43. Express an opinion about the rights and wrongs of the pictured situation. For example, for the same picture above: Should crocodiles be hunted and killed? What should happen if a crocodile kills someone?

Many of your students likely enjoy thinking and talking about food. So why wouldn’t they be motivated to write about it?

How you integrate food into your ESL writing assignments depends on your classroom arrangements and the amount of time you’re willing to put into preparation.

In any case, here are some ideas:

• Start with the preparation and sharing of food before writing about it.
• Look at pictures of food, and talk about them before moving on to writing.
• Have students research food-related topics on the internet.
• Start with a story about food.

Here are the specific food writing prompts:

44. After the story of “The Gingerbread Man”: Think about food that develops a life of its own, and what would happen with it. (This can also open up a discussion about cultural foods.) For example, make up a similar story about another piece of food (e.g., spaghetti or rice that comes alive). What if you felt something moving in your mouth after you bit into your burger?

45. Write a story (real or imagined) about being very hungry and/or finding/buying/stealing food to meet a desperate need.

46. Write a story about trying a new, unfamiliar kind of food—maybe in a (relevant) cross-cultural setting.

47. Write a story about finding and eating a food that has magical properties. (Maybe read or watch some or all of “Alice in Wonderland”  first.)

48. Describe interesting/disgusting/unusual/delicious/colorful foods, especially after a class tasting lesson. (Prepare students first with suitable taste vocabulary .)

49. Describe a food that’s unfamiliar to most students in the class. (This is particularly helpful for classes where there are students belonging to minority groups who hesitate to speak up.)

50. Describe an imaginary magical food.

51. Give instructions for preparing a particular recipe.

52. After a class activity or demonstration involving food: Write down what you have learned.

53. Give instructions for producing food—growing vegetables, keeping animals, etc.

54. Give instructions for buying the best food—what to look for, looking at labels, checking prices and the like.

55. Write about your opinion on food and health in First World and Third World countries. (Explain what makes a country “First,” “Second” or “Third World” first.)

56. Write about your opinion on the cost of food.

57. Write about your opinion on GMOs or genetically engineered foods .

There’s nothing quite like a good “whodunnit,” and students will always enjoy a good puzzle. You can base various pre-writing activities around the two games below to get the class warmed up for ESL writing practice.

• Conundrum. This is an example of a game that can be played as a speaking and listening activity, and can lead into some good writing. The game starts with a simple statement or description of a situation like the ones described in situation puzzles . Students ask questions and receive yes/no answers until they work out the explanation for the situation.

After Conundrum, here are some of the activities your students can do:

58. Write a story about the sequence of events involved in a situation brought up in the game.

59. Devise and describe your own situation puzzle.

• Putting their hands inside a cloth bag (or just feeling the outside) to guess what an object is.
• Smelling substances in opaque jars with perforated lids, and trying to guess what they are.
• Tasting mystery foods on plastic spoons (with blindfolds).
• Looking at pictures of mysterious objects from obscure angles.
• Listening to and guessing the origins of sound effects. (You can record your own, or use some from the Internet .)

(Important: Make sure that whatever you’re using for your guessing game is safe for your students, especially if they involve having to touch, taste or smell the object.)

After a guessing game, your students can:

60. Write about a possible mystery object and a magical quality it could possess.

61. Describe what you thought you saw, heard, felt, tasted or smelled.

For both games, here are some writing prompts you can do:

62. Give instructions for playing one of the games.

63. Give instructions for the perfect crime.

64. Give your opinion about a recent crime and the punishment for it.

Emailing can often be a scary task for your students, especially if they’re using a new, strange language like English. You can utilize an email writing activity to help your students build confidence and get more comfortable writing in English.

Email can also teach your students things like proper language (formal or informal), structure and format. Email-related writing activities for ESL students can offer ample opportunities to teach all of these three aspects.

Since emails involve two parties (the sender and the receiver), you’ll need to pair your students up for this activity. Here’s how to prepare for it:

• Create one set of worksheets explaining details relevant to the sender. For example, it could contain information about a sender’s upcoming birthday party that they want to invite the receiver to.
• Create another set of worksheets with the receiver’s details. The worksheets could contain questions about food dishes or gifts, or it could say that the receiver can’t make it for one reason or other.

Once the above has been done, give one set of worksheets to the “senders” and the other to the “receivers.” Then, here’s what your students will do:

65. Based on the senders’ worksheets, write an email inviting the receiver and explaining the key aspects of the event featured in the worksheet.

66. Based on the receivers’ worksheets, write an email explaining why you can or cannot make it to the party, and/or what other information you need about the event.

Advertisements are everywhere, and you can bet that your students have a few favorite ads of their own. Advertisement-related writing activities work across age groups and can be adapted to most students and their needs.

This great ESL writing assignment can help your students put the adjectives they’ve learned into good use, as well as showcase their creative writing and persuasion skills.

You can find advertisements everywhere, including:

• YouTube videos
• Newspapers and magazines

You can also bring an object (or handful of objects) to class that your students can write ads about.

67. After your students carefully examine the object(s) you brought into class: Write all the adjectives you can think of about it.

68. For a more challenging writing exercise: Write an ad about the object. How would you persuade someone who knows nothing about the object whatsoever to buy it? (Your students may or may not use the adjectives they wrote down earlier. Encourage them to be creative!)

Your students have likely already done some kind of report during the course of their studies. Also, writing reports is a skill that’ll be useful to them once they enter college or the corporate world (if they aren’t in it already). If you feel that they need a little more practice in this area, use this ESL writing assignment.

First, discuss how research and structure matter to reports—and perhaps show them a few samples. Then, give them a few questions to base their reports on, like:

69. What can you say about (insert topic here) in terms of (insert specific angle here)? (For example, “What can you say about the government’s efforts to improve the local park in terms of its impact on the general public?” Of course, you should adapt this question to the level of your students.)

70. After talking about a YouTube video on bears eating salmon : What would happen to the bears if the salmon ran out? 

This ESL writing activity is a bit more intensive and will allow your students to employ many different aspects of their ESL knowledge. Crafting a class newsletter will build collaboration, communication, listening, speaking and, of course, writing skills. If they’re not sure how to build a newsletter or newspaper from scratch, they can always swipe from premade templates like this one .

The newsletter/newspaper can follow a specific theme, or the articles can consist of a hodgepodge of random topics based on questions like:

71. What is the most interesting thing that happened in school this year? It can be the funniest/scariest/most heartwarming incident. Write a feature article about it. (Make sure to explain what a “feature article” is .)

72. Write a report highlighting the key events in some recent local festivals or concerts.

73. Going off of the last exercise, write an ad inviting the reader to buy a product or attend an event.

Once all of the articles are done, you can start putting them together. Make sure to walk your students through these newspaper layout tips . And when the newsletter/newspaper is finally published and circulated out there for the world to see, remember to congratulate your students for a job well done!

No matter what writing assignments you choose, make sure to keep the excitement level high so that your students are enthusiastic for your next writing session.

Whether they write by hand or type on a computer, remember to encourage them as much as you can by focusing on the good points rather than just running all over their mistakes with a red pen.

Lastly, find ways for them to share their efforts—whether online, on the classroom wall, bound together in a book to be passed around, etc.

They can also read aloud to each other, share with their parents and siblings and even share with other classes!

For more ESL assignment ideas, check out this post: 

Great ESL homework ideas can be difficult to come up with. So check out these 13 great ideas for ESL homework assignments that your students will love. Not only are they…

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Florida State University

FSU | Writing Resources

Writing Resources

The English Department

• College Composition

Critical Reading Activities

• Active Reading
• Appealing to an Audience 
• Finding the Commonalities
• Sofa to 5k: Active Reading
• The Verbal Shove-Off: Active Reading
• How to Eat a Poem  

Active Reading: Marking Up the Text and Dialogic Journals

Purpose: Helping students learn to actively read texts, how to take notes on readings, and gain an understanding of their preferred styles for notetaking and the possible benefits of each.

Description: This exercise asks students to try two active reading strategies using the sources they might use for their research papers. Then, they discuss in order to articulate their preferred note taking style and the benefits of each.

Suggested Time: 50 minutes

Have students bring in at least two articles they plan on using for their research. Give students the two handouts below. Give students 20 minutes to try each technique, using one article for each technique. Give 5 minutes for independent writing in which students explain which method they prefer and why. Then, have a class discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of each method.

Active Reading – Mark up the Text

• Underline key ideas – for example, topic sentences.
• Box or circle words or phrases you want to remember.
• Place a checkmark or a star next to an important idea.
• Place a double check mark or double star next to an especially significant idea.
• Put a question mark near any unfamiliar reference or a word you need to look up.
• Number the writer’s key supporting points or examples.
• Use different color highlighters.
• Don’t be afraid to write your thoughts in the margins or on a separate sheet of paper (like the dialogic journal).

Questions to Ask (and Answer) when Reading a Text

• What issue is the writer focusing on?
• Does the writer take a clear stand on this issue?
• What is the writer’s thesis (if there is one)?
• What is the writer’s purpose for writing?
• Who is the audience for this writing?
• What is the writer’s tone?  Why do you think he/she writes with this tone?
• Does the writer seem to assume readers will agree with his/her position?
• What evidence does the writer use to support the essay’s thesis/central argument?  Does the writer include enough evidence?
• Does the writer consider, address and/or refute opposing arguments?
• Do you understand the vocabulary?  If not, look the words up.
• Do you understand the writer’s references/citations?  If not, look them up.
• Do you agree with the points the writer makes?  Why/why not?
• What connections can you make between this article and others you have read?

Dialogic Journals (also called Double Entry Journal)

Before reading, answer these questions:

• Why are you reading this piece?
• What do you hope to learn as you read it?

Fold a page in your daybook in half (long ways) and follow these steps to complete your dialogue journal:

• Write the title and author of the article at the top of the page.
• In the first column, “write down anything from the reading that catches your attention, seems significant, bores you silly, confuses you, or otherwise causes you to take note (or stop taking note).” 1  Make sure to also write down the page number from which you have taken the quote.
• In the second column, explain what made you write the quote in the first column and/or respond to, question or critique the quote.

Note: You will ping-pong between the two columns.  When you find a quote you want to write down, you will write that quote in column one and then respond to it in column two. Then you will go back to reading, notice a new quote you want to write down in column one and respond in column two.  And so on…

For this assignment, I want you to choose at least two quotes per page.

When you have finished reading, answer these questions:

• How is this reading useful or not useful for my purpose (in this case, for your inquiry project)?
• If it is useful, what is useful about it, and what in the reading illustrates that use?

_____________________________

1  Adler-Kassner, Linda. Considering Literacy. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. Print.  (Quote taken from page 10)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Appealing to an Audience: How Publications Set a Tone with Content, Structure and Design  

Purpose: Understanding how journals and newspapers set a particular tone for their audiences. Description: This exercise asks students to analyze various features of publications. Homework assignment that turns into a discussion the next class period. Often used when students are preparing for a feature article or remediation project.

Suggested Time: 20-50 minutes (depending on discussion time)

Give students the following homework assignment:

Publication Analysis (2-3 typed, double-spaced pages)

For this short assignment, you will identify what specific publication you are going to write your feature article for, and analyze the publication in four areas:

• Content – skim through several issues of the publication, primarily paying attention to the feature articles (i.e. usually the major articles that are listed on the front cover). What subjects/topics do their authors write about? Make a list of the most common subjects you see.
• Style – pay attention to the type of vocabulary used, the tone employed, the length of the articles, paragraphs, and sentences, the persona/ethos that the writer constructs, and the overarching themes that emerge.
• Structure/Design – what kinds of organizational structures do the writers use? What about their “hook”? Do they typically start with an interesting quote, a shocking statement, the posing of a problem, factual information, an anecdote, etc.? What kinds of design elements are present? Are there off-set quotes, images/advertisements, unique fonts, subject headings, works cited, bio of the author, etc.?
• Audience - On the basis of the feature articles’ common types of content, style, and structure/design, what can you infer about the audience? Start with demographics like age, race/ethnicity, gender, religious/political affiliations, etc. but don’t stop there. What does this audience value? How do they perceive themselves? What kinds of weaknesses or desires do the advertisements tend to exploit or encourage? What kinds of knowledge or background experiences do the articles assume that their readers have?

Have students discuss what they found either in small groups, whole groups, or both.

____________________________________________________________________

Finding the Commonalities: Investing Organizational Structures and Formatting of Academic Articles  

Purpose: Helping students develop knowledge about organizational structures and formatting common to academic articles, so that  can use  this information to help them read difficult texts

Description: This exercise asks students to identify and present on the features and types of academic texts. This exercise works for particularly well for research-based classes, but can work in other composition courses as well.

Suggested Time: 2-3 class periods and outside of class work time

In groups of two or three, students choose one of the types of essays or essay features from the list at the bottom of the page and create a short presentation for the class.  (The list is by no means complete but is applicable to most of the texts students encounter in scholarly databases.)

For the article types, students should explain

• the purpose of the article (i.e. what does a review article actually do?)
•  the  kind of information in each section (i.e. what does the results section do?)
•  how each section is connected to the others (i.e. how is the lit review connected to the argument?)
•  and how knowing this information helps readers understand the text  (i.e. how can you read differently knowing the purpose of a lit review?)

For the features common to multiple article types, students should focus on

•  the purpose of those features (i.e. what do notes do?)
• the kind of information in the features (i.e. what kind of information would you find in notes?)
• how the features are connected to the content of the article (i.e what is the relationship between the subject heading and the actual text?)
• how knowing about these features helps readers understand the article (i.e. how might you read differently knowing about subject headings?)

Each group creates a PowerPoint or similar artifact that can be distributed to the rest of the class.  After the presentations, discuss what the students learned and then, during the next class period, apply this knowledge to a course reading.

List of Article Types and Features

• IMRAD Articles (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion)
• Review Essays (Introduction, Methods, Article Discussion, and Implications)
• Humanities Essays (Introduction, Lit Review, Body/Argument, and Conclusion)
• Book Reviews (Introduction, Summary, Critique, and Implications)
• Subject Headings
• Signposts / Forecasting Moves
• Notes/Endnotes/Footnotes
• Works Cited Pages

Sofa to 5k: Active Reading   

Purpose:  This exercise demonstrates the relationship between active-reading and efficient-reading. Students should learn that attentive reading habits can increase their retention and comprehension. It is well-suited for the beginning of the semester, or in conjunction with a research-based assignment.

Description: This exercise prompts students to reconsider quick and non-interactive reading by comparing the processes. It should demonstrate that retaining information is more difficult and time-consuming from a passively read passage.

Suggested Time: 40 minutes

• Ask students to read an excerpt of your choice projected on the board.
• Remove the projection and ask them to write short answers to a series of questions referencing specific content, as in phrasing or numerical details.
• Discuss their answers, and draw extra attention to their (in)ability to quote exactly from memory.
• Project the excerpt again and ask them to double-check their answers.
• ...Did it require them to essentially read the entire passage again?...
• Provide a second excerpt on a printed hand-out and ask them to read the material with a pencil in hand. Encourage them to mark the passages they think are important, especially the author’s thesis or relevant / convincing facts. Ask them to anticipate as they are reading which details you may have chosen for questions.
• Project a new set of questions for the second excerpt, and ask them to write their short answers on the same sheet of paper as the first excerpt.
• Discuss their answers. How did engaging with the text affect their ability to find the specific answers? How well did they understand the second text? Did they need to completely re-read to find the answers?
• Start a discussion about which process seemed "better" to them, or more useful for writing with research.
• Be sure to question which factors might prohibit them from physically writing in their books (they want to sell them back?), and address possible solutions (post-its).

The Verbal Shove-Off: Active Reading 

Purpose:  This exercise compels students to engage with authors in an exaggerated take on the “talking back to the text” reading strategy; and serves as a nice precursor to an opinion-editorial.  Students should be motivated by the outlandish or absurdly biased (poorly researched) essays to challenge the author with questions in the margins of their essays. Comments like, “say what?!, seriously?, really?, says who?,” are what we want.

Description: While this exercise aims to generate a conversation between the student and the author, it  invites students to scrutinize the resources used within the text. It prompts students to challenge claims in a colloquial manner, and then provides the opportunity to discuss varied viewpoints and draft a counterargument. This is aggro active-reading, or active reading with a purpose.

Suggested Time: 60 minutes

• First, you need to find an “article” which presents opinion as fact, and refers to questionable sources like Wikipedia. Here is one, for example:  Interest Convergence, FSU, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida .
• If you’re in a computer-classroom have your students respond in a document as they read the article. If not, and preferably, provide copies.
• You’ll also want to offer a brief introduction to the topic.
• Ask the students to decide—as they are reading—if they “agree” or “disagree” with the statements being made—considering a decision, means thinking.
• Liken it to the way a lawyer collects a defense.
• When they are done reacting to the piece, facilitate a discussion of the essay.
• What points did the author make well? Where did they fail? Do you agree? Etc.
• Ask them to write a response.
• Resume discussion for another 10-minutes.
• Last question, did having your paper written out help you articulate your thoughts?

How to Eat a Poem 

Purpose: When reading poetry, students so often feel pressure to find the “deeper” or “underlying” meaning. This exercise is meant to demonstrate that they can read poetry and get meaning from it, and that they don’t need to feel pressure about it.

Description: This exercise provides one way for students to “eat” a poem, meaning to digest a meaning from a poem for themselves. Basically, you’ll choose a contemporary poem and explain how to read a poem, then have students read according to that protocol.

Suggested Time: 35-50 Minutes

Step 1: Prepare for Lesson

• For this lesson, you’ll need to pick out a poem to read to the class. I recommend picking out something contemporary that easily connects with students. Examples of this could be Tony Hoagland’s “Poor Britney Spears,” Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You,” Matthew Dickman’s “V,” Dorriane Laux’s “Facts about the Moon,” or Sherman Alexie’s “Heroes.” Obviously these are just examples -- there are tons more out there. The point is not to pick something too archaic or hard to understand; rather, choose poetry that is contemporary and digestible.
• Make copies of the poem so that each student has one to read in class. Make sure that students have writing utensils ready.

Step 2: Dispell the Myth of the “Underlying Meaning”

• To start this exercise you’ll need to give a brief talk or have them read something that dispels a myth that has been instilled in many young adults, the myth that poetry has some “hidden meaning.” Here’s an example of what I tell my students:

People often offer me this complaint when I talk to them about poetry: ‘I don’t understand poetry. Why do poets hide meaning? I wish they would just say what they mean!” Perhaps you’ve thought this (I did when I was in college).

But thinking that poets are trying to “hide” their meaning is misleading, and hiding meaning is not what poetry is about. If the best poets could hide their meaning the most, then the “best” poetry would be unreadable to anybody else. Instead, poetry is more exact in meaning than prose or plain speech.

Let me explain: if I say “I love you,” you have some vague idea of what I mean. But I’ve said that phrase to my parents, sister, brother, ex-girlfriends, former classes I taught, pet bird, favorite book, etc. The phrase has little meaning on its own. Sometimes it means “I want to get in your pants;” others it means “I commit my life to you,” or “you birthed me, that was pretty cool,” “I grew up with you and we are linked that way forever,” “you were the best classroom I‘ve taught,” “you whistle the Mardi Gras Mambo, that’s pretty cool.”

What I’ve just done is made my language more specific to its audience and to the rhetorical situation. Poetry is that magnified times 10 -- it is the most specific form of expression. Sure, there are many kinds of poetry, some easier and some harder to understand. Sometimes you will be able to verbalize a meaning, and sometimes you won’t, and that’s ok. Sometimes, maybe, you’ll feel like you know what the poem means, but won’t be able to describe it. But what makes poetry hard to understand is that you are zooming in to unpack the specific meaning of each word when you read it.

Step 3: Instruct Students on How to Read a Poem, They Read Chosen Poem

• Read the poem first with your pen down. Read at a moderate pace -- slow enough to enjoy the language, but fast enough to follow the meaning of the sentences.
• As you read the first time, try to play a video in your head of the images in the poem. Reading a poem should be like experiencing your own personal movie. This may not work for the entire poem, but do it as much as possible.
• Reread the poem, this time with a pen in your hand. Underline your favorite images, and make a short note about why you connect with them. Put a star next to any parts you don’t understand.
• Also, on this second read think about the tone of the poem as you read. Is the poem traumatic? Hilarious? Is the speaker yelling at you? whispering? Try to see if you can hear those things in your head.
• Finally, let the poem affect you and write down how it makes you feel. Allow yourself to be moved, or to take something from the poem, or even to get angry with the poem. This requires letting your guard down and believing that a poem can do this. People have different “readings” of poems/literature - some will find the same poem offensive as another might find beautiful.

Step 4: Class Discussion of the Poem

•  Have a conversation about the poem with the students. Make sure to have the conversation on the student’s terms -- this means you should start by asking them what the poem meant to them, what images or lines they particularly enjoyed, or what video they saw in their heads while reading.
• As you discuss with them, be sure to ask abou the poem’s rhetorical situaton, the audience of the poem, etc.
• Also, be sure to ask them about the process of reading -- did it work for them? Did it not? Why or why not?