how to use creative writing in class

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

The world of creative writing is as vast as it is rewarding. It’s a form of expression that allows the writer to explore different worlds, characters, and narratives – all within the power of their pen.

But what exactly is creative writing and why is it important? Let’s explore the value of creative writing and how to inspire young (or old!) minds to embark on the curious and exciting journey of writing creatively – it’s easier than you think!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing, in its simplest form, is writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature.

It’s characterized by its emphasis on:

narrative craft
character development
the use of literary devices

From poetry to plays, scripts to sonnets, creative writing covers a wide range of genres . It’s about painting pictures with words, invoking emotions, and bringing ideas to life . It’s about crafting stories that are compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Whether you’re penning a novel or jotting down a journal entry, creative writing encourages you to unleash your imagination and express your thoughts in a unique, artistic way. For a deeper dive into the realm of creative writing, you can visit our article on what is creative writing .

Benefits of Developing Creative Writing Skills

The benefits of creative writing extend beyond the page.

It’s not just about creating captivating stories or crafting beautiful prose. The skills developed through creative writing are invaluable in many aspects of life and work.

1. Creative writing fosters creativity and imagination.

It encourages you to think outside the box, broaden your perspective, and explore new ideas. It also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, as it involves conveying thoughts, emotions, and narratives in a clear and compelling manner.

2. Creative writing aids in improving critical thinking skills.

It prompts you to analyze characters, plotlines, and themes, and make connections between different ideas. This process activates different parts of the mind, drawing on personal experiences, the imagination, logical plot development, and emotional intelligence.

3. Creative writing is also a valuable tool for self-expression and personal growth.

It allows you to explore your feelings, experiences, and observations, providing an outlet for self-reflection and introspection. By both reading and writing about different characters in different situations, readers develop empathy in a gentle but effective way.

4. Creative writing skills can open up a host of career opportunities.

From authors and editors to content creators and copywriters, the demand for creative writers is vast and varied. You can learn more about potential career paths in our article on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

In essence, creative writing is more than just an art—it’s a skill, a craft, and a powerful tool for communication and self-expression. Whether you’re teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art.

The 3 Roles of a Creative Writing Teacher

Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher’s role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity , nurturing talent , and providing constructive criticism . These elements play a significant role in shaping budding writers and fostering their passion for the craft.

1. Inspiring Creativity

The primary function of a creative writing teacher is to inspire creativity.

They must foster an environment that encourages students to think outside the box and explore new possibilities . This includes presenting students with creative writing prompts that challenge their thinking, promoting lively discussions around various topics, and providing opportunities for students to engage in creative writing activities for kids .

Teachers should also expose students to a range of literary genres , styles, and techniques to broaden their understanding and appreciation of the craft. This exposure not only enhances their knowledge but also stimulates their creativity, encouraging them to experiment with different writing styles .

2. Nurturing Talent

Nurturing talent involves recognizing the unique abilities of each student and providing the necessary support and guidance to help them develop these skills. A creative writing teacher needs to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student and tailor their approach accordingly.

This means:

offering personalized feedback
setting realistic yet challenging goals
providing opportunities for students to showcase their work

Encouraging students to participate in writing competitions or to publish their work can give them a confidence boost and motivate them to improve. Furthermore, teachers should educate students about various creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree . This knowledge can inspire students to pursue their passion for writing and explore career opportunities in the field.

3. Providing Constructive Criticism

Providing constructive criticism is a critical aspect of teaching creative writing. It involves assessing students’ work objectively and providing feedback that helps them improve .

Teachers should:

highlight the strengths of the work
address the areas that need improvement
suggest ways to make the piece better

Constructive criticism should be specific, actionable, and encouraging . It’s important to remember that the goal is to help the student improve, not to discourage them. Therefore, teachers need to communicate their feedback in a respectful and supportive manner.

In essence, a teacher’s role in teaching creative writing extends beyond mere instruction. They are mentors who inspire, nurture, and shape the minds of budding writers. By fostering a supportive and stimulating environment, they can help students unlock their creative potential and develop a lifelong love for writing.

3 Techniques for Teaching Creative Writing

When it comes to understanding how to teach creative writing, there are several effective techniques that can help inspire students and foster their writing skills.

1. Encouraging Free Writing Exercises

Free writing is a technique that encourages students to write continuously for a set amount of time without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or topic. This type of exercise can help unleash creativity, as it allows students to freely express their thoughts and ideas without judgment or constraint.

As a teacher, you can set a specific theme or provide creative writing prompts to guide the writing session. Alternatively, you can allow students to write about any topic that comes to mind. The key is to create an environment that encourages creative exploration and expression.

2. Exploring Different Genres

Another effective technique is to expose students to a wide range of writing genres. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, fantasy, mystery, and more. By exploring different genres, students can discover their unique writing styles and interests. This variety also offers the chance to expand their writing skills and apply them to various writing formats.

To facilitate this exploration, you can assign writing projects in different genres, conduct genre-specific writing workshops, or invite guest speakers who specialize in different genres. You can also encourage students to critically analyze how different authors approach their work.

3. Analyzing Published Works

Analyzing published works is a powerful way to teach creative writing. This technique allows students to learn from established authors by studying their:

writing styles
narrative structures
use of language.

It also provides a practical context for understanding writing concepts and techniques.

As a teacher, you can select diverse pieces of literature for analysis , ranging from classic novels to contemporary short stories. Encourage students to identify elements they admire in these works and discuss how they can incorporate similar techniques into their own writing.

These techniques for teaching creative writing are effective ways to inspire creativity, encourage self-expression, and develop writing skills. As a teacher, your role is crucial in guiding students through their creative journey and helping them realize their potential as writers.

Creative Writing Workshops and Exercises

One effective method on how to teach creative writing is through the use of targeted workshops and exercises. These interactive sessions can stimulate creativity, foster character development , and help in understanding story structures .

Idea Generation Workshops

Idea generation is a crucial aspect of creative writing. It is the starting point that provides a springboard for writers to explore and develop their narratives. Idea generation workshops can be an interactive and fun way to help writers come up with fresh ideas.

Workshops can include brainstorming sessions , where writers are encouraged to think freely and note down all ideas, no matter how unconventional they may seem. Another method is the use of writing prompts , which can serve as a creative spark.

A prompt could be:

even an image

Editor’s Note : Encourage children to create a big scribble on a scrap piece of paper and then look for an image in it (like looking for pictures in the clouds). This can be a great creative writing prompt and students will love sharing their writing with each other! Expect lots of giggles and fun!

Character Development Exercises

Characters are the heart of any story. They drive the narrative and engage the readers. Character development exercises can help writers create well-rounded and relatable characters.

Such exercises can include character questionnaires , where writers answer a series of questions about their characters to gain a deeper understanding of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations. Role-playing activities can also be useful, allowing writers to step into their characters’ shoes and explore their reactions in different scenarios.

Story Structure Workshops

Understanding story structure is vital for creating a compelling narrative. Story structure workshops can guide writers on how to effectively structure their stories to engage readers from start to finish .

These workshops can cover essential elements of story structures like:

rising action
falling action

In addition to understanding the basics, writers should be encouraged to experiment with different story structures to find what works best for their narrative style. An understanding of story structure can also help in analyzing and learning from published works .

Providing writers with the right tools and techniques, through workshops and exercises, can significantly improve their creative writing skills. It’s important to remember that creativity flourishes with practice and patience .

As a teacher, nurturing this process is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative writing. For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing .

Tips to Enhance Creative Writing Skills

The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one’s own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your creative writing abilities and make your teaching methods more effective.

Regular Practice

Like any other skill, creative writing requires regular practice . Foster the habit of writing daily, even if it’s just a few lines. This will help you stay in touch with your creative side and continually improve your writing skills. Encourage your students to do the same.

Introduce them to various creative writing prompts to stimulate their imagination and make their writing practice more engaging.

Reading Widely

Reading is an essential part of becoming a better writer. By reading widely, you expose yourself to a variety of styles, tones, and genres . This not only broadens your literary horizons but also provides a wealth of ideas for your own writing.

Encourage your students to read extensively as well. Analyzing and discussing different works can be an excellent learning exercise and can spark creative ideas .

Exploring Various Writing Styles

The beauty of creative writing lies in its diversity. From poetic verses to gripping narratives, there’s a wide range of styles to explore. Encourage your students to try their hand at different forms of writing. This not only enhances their versatility but also helps them discover their unique voice as a writer.

To help them get started, you can introduce a variety of creative writing activities for kids . These tasks can be tailored to suit different age groups and proficiency levels. Remember, the goal is to foster a love for writing, so keep the activities fun and engaging .

Have Fun Teaching Creative Writing!

Enhancing creative writing skills is a continuous journey. It requires persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. As a teacher, your role is to guide your students on this journey, providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to flourish as writers – and most of all – enjoy the process!

For more insights on creative writing, be sure to explore our articles on what is creative writing and creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

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Enriching Creative Writing Activities for Kids

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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that every student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a seven-step method that will scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
imaginative scenarios
prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
What might make us question those beliefs?
What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note: at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

a work in progress.

Remind them that if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs also gives you access to an ever-expanding collection of over 3,500 online books!

2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
Which parts am I most uncertain about?
Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
Are there places where I could have used a better word?
Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note: if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun marking your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

How to Teach Creative Writing

Last Updated: March 13, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 119,397 times.

Creative writing is one of the most enjoyable types of writing for students. Not only does it allow students to explore their imaginations, but it helps them to structure their ideas and produce writing that they can be proud of. However, creative writing is a relatively difficult type of writing to teach and offers challenges to both new and seasoned teachers alike. Fortunately, though, with some work of their own, teachers can better develop their own abilities to teach creative writing.

Providing Students with the Fundamentals

Step 1 Introduce the important elements of storytelling.

Theme. The theme of a story is its message or the main idea behind it.
Setting. The setting of a story is the location or time it takes place in.
Plot. The plot is the overall story, narrative, or sequence of events.
Characterization. Characterization is how a character or person in a story is explained or presented to the reader.
Conflict and dramatic action. Conflict and dramatic action are the main events of focus in the story. These events are often tense or exciting and are used to lure the reader in. [1] X Research source

Step 2 Encourage students to engage the reader.

Explain how your students, as writers, can appeal to the humanity of their readers. One great way to do this is to ask them to explore character development. By developing the characters in their story, readers will become invested in the story.
Discuss the triggers that engage readers in an effective story. Most great stories start with a problem, which is solved with the resolution, or conclusion of the story. Encourage students to create an engaging problem that will hook the readers in the first few pages of a short story or novel. [2] X Research source

Step 3 Explain the importance of tone and atmosphere.

By setting the tone and atmosphere of a story, the author will establish his or her attitude to the subject and the feel of the story.
Tone can be positive, neutral, or negative. [3] X Research source
Atmosphere can be dark, happy, or neither.
Descriptive words like “darkness” or “sunshine” can help set both the tone and atmosphere. [4] X Research source

Active verbs are used to show action in the story.
Active verbs are very often a better alternative to passive voice, as it keeps your writing clear and concise for your readers. [5] X Research source
For example, instead of writing “The cat was chased by the dog” your student can write “The dog chased the cat.”

Guiding Students through the Process

Step 1 Allow students to pick their topic.

Tell your students to brainstorm about ideas they are truly interested in.
If you must restrict the general topic, make sure that your students have a good amount of wiggle room within the broad topic of the assignment.
Never assign specific topics and force students to write. This will undermine the entire process. [6] X Research source

Step 2 Have your students write a flexible outline.

Letting your students know that the outline is non-binding. They don’t have to follow it in later steps of the writing process.
Telling your students that the parts of their outline should be written very generally.
Recommending that your students create several outlines, or outlines that go in different directions (in terms of plot and other elements of storytelling). The more avenues your students explore, the better. [7] X Research source

Step 3 Avoid teaching a story “formula.”

Tell students that there is no “right” way to write a story.
Let students know that their imaginations should guide their way.
Show students examples of famous writing that breaks normal patterns, like the works of E.E. Cummings, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare.
Ask students to forget about any expectations they think you have for how a story should be written. [8] X Research source

Step 4 Provide feedback on rough drafts.

Gather the first drafts and comment on the student's work. For first drafts, you want to check on the overall structure of the draft, proper word use, punctuation, spelling, and overall cohesion of the piece. [9] X Research source
Remind them that great writers usually wrote several drafts before they were happy with their stories.
Avoid grading drafts for anything other than completion.

Let students pair off to edit each others' papers.
Have your students join groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to go edit and provide feedback on each member’s story.
Provide guidance so students contribute constructively to the group discussion. [10] X Research source

Step 6 Evaluate your students based on their creativity.

Reward your students if they are innovative or do something unique and truly creative.
Avoid evaluating your students based on a formula.
Assess and review your own standards as often as you can. Remember that the point is to encourage your students' creativity. [11] X Research source

Spurring Creativity

Step 1 Inspire students with an appreciation of literature.

Teach your students about a variety of writers and genres.
Have your students read examples of different genres.
Promote a discussion within your class of the importance of studying literature.
Ask students to consider the many ways literature improves the world and asks individuals to think about their own lives. [12] X Research source

Step 2 Provide your students with a large number of resources.

Make sure your room is stocked with a wide variety of fiction stories.
Make sure your room is stocked with plenty of paper for your students to write on.
Line up other writing teachers or bring in writers from the community to talk to and encourage your students.

Step 3 Have your students write practice stories based on random photos or pictures you provide.

Cut out pictures and photographs from magazines, comic books, and newspapers.
Have your students cut out photographs and pictures and contribute them to your bank.
Consider having your students randomly draw a given number of photos and pictures and writing a short story based on what they draw.
This technique can help students overcome writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [13] X Research source

Pair your students with students from another grade in your school.
Allow your students to write stories that younger students in your school would like to read.
Pair your students with another student in the class and have them evaluate each others' work. [14] X Research source

If you just have a typical classroom to work with, make sure to put inspirational posters or other pictures on the walls.
Open any curtains so students can see outside.
If you have the luxury of having an extra classroom or subdividing your own classroom, create a comfortable space with a lot of inspirational visuals.
Writing spaces can help break writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [15] X Research source

Involve students in the printing process.
Publication does not have to be expensive or glossy.
Copies can be made in the school workroom if possible or each student might provide a copy for the others in the group.
A collection of the stories can be bound with a simple stapler or brads.
Seek out other opportunities for your students to publish their stories.

Expert Q&A

↑ https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/creative-writing-101
↑ https://kobowritinglife.com/2012/10/14/six-tips-for-engaging-readers-within-two-seconds-the-hook-in-fiction-and-memoir/
↑ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/in-writing-tone-is-the-author%E2%80%99s-attitude/
↑ http://ourenglishclass.net/class-notes/writing/the-writing-process/craft/tone-and-mood/
↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/
↑ http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/
↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-steps-to-creating-a-flexible-outline-for-any-story
↑ http://thewritepractice.com/the-formula-to-write-a-novel/
↑ https://student.unsw.edu.au/editing-your-essay
↑ http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/5-promoting-creative-writing
↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/grade-creative-writing-paper-3698.html
↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/educating-teenagers-emotions-through-literature/476790/
↑ http://www.wrightingwords.com/for-teachers/5-tips-for-teaching-creative-writing/

About This Article

To teach creative writing, start by introducing your students to the core elements of storytelling, like theme, setting, and plot, while reminding them that there’s no formula for combining these elements to create a story. Additionally, explain how important it is to use tone and atmosphere, along with active verbs, to write compelling stories that come alive. When your students have chosen their topics, have them create story outlines before they begin writing. Then, read their rough drafts and provide feedback to keep them on the right path to storytelling success. For tips from our English reviewer on how to spur creativity in your students, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Creative Writing Skills: 6 Lessons You Need To Teach Today

So, you’re going to teach Creative Writing. Congratulations! Now comes the hard part–what exactly does that mean? What should you be teaching? What skills should your students be learning? In this post, I’m going to share some essential Creative Writing skills you should be teaching in your high school Creative Writing class.

If you’re looking for more tips to teach Creative Writing, check out this post . And if you need help planning the Creative Writing semester, this post should help .

(Looking to skip the planning entirely? Grab all of my Creative Writing skills lessons right here! )

"Creative Writing Skills: 6 Lessons You Need to Teach Today" It's Lit Teaching blog post Pinterest pin

Creative Writing Skills #1: Show. Don’t Tell.

The advice to “show, don’t tell” is some of the oldest and most consistent advice given to young writers. And it’s for a good reason–they really struggle with it!

About half of my students come into Creative Writing with these big elaborate stories they want to tell. But when they actually get into writing, their stories feel more like a list of events that happened.

I’ve seen months of plot happen in just a paragraph of my students’ writing. Students need to learn to slow down and create an experience for their readers. It’s how a story unfolds, after all, that makes it worthwhile–not the events themselves.

Tips for Teaching “Show. Don’t Tell”

Cover of It's Lit Teaching Product: Creative Writing Workshop and Mini Lesson for Showing, Not Telling in Writing

Like all creative writing skills, you’ll want to show your students some really good mentor texts first . Find some excerpts from books with really juicy descriptions. Share these with your students.

After they have some examples, give students time to try “telling” an event, description, or emotion instead of “showing” it.

I do this by giving each student a “telling sentence” and asking them to turn it into a “showing” paragraph. A student might get a sentence that says something like, “Billy felt angry.” Then, they’ll have to write a whole paragraph that implies Billy is angry without actually saying it bluntly.

If you want to save yourself some time (and the mental anguish of brainstorming a bunch of bland sentences), you can get my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-Lesson right here. It includes a slideshow, student worksheets, and those telling sentences.

Engage your students in more creative writing!

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Creative Writing Skills #2: Precise and Concise Language Choice

Now that your students are learning to slow down and offer descriptions in their writing, it’s time to help them focus on their word choice.

Diction is immensely important to a writer–especially when storytelling gets more advanced. A lot of our students want to write down the first words that come to their minds and then “be done.”

But we know great writing doesn’t happen like that. We have to teach our students to find the best word, not the first word–without abusing a thesaurus.

Tips for Teaching Better Word Choice

First, you’ll want to show your students some examples of really great concise and precise word choice. You’ll also want to show some not-so-great examples. The comparison should be eye-opening for your students.

Now, the best way to become more precise in your diction is to improve your vocabulary. We probably can’t make great strides in improving our students’ vocabulary in just a quarter or semester of Creative Writing.

But we can show them how to improve some of the most commonly used vague language . One great example of this is the word “got.”

It’s pretty rare that “got” is the best verb for a situation, but we–and our students–use it all the time. If we can teach students that “got” is a red flag for vague language, that’s a huge step!

We can also teach our students to avoid filler words.

If you need help putting this all together in a lesson, I have a no-prep Precise and Concise Langauge Mini-Lesson right here for you . Included is a slideshow, students worksheets, and a reference handout for students they can use every day.

Creative Writing Skills #3: Dialogue

Your students are starting to put words on a page and–hey–they’re not bad!

But at some point, your students are going to have their characters talk to each other. And this can be when stories get really, really bad.

Early on in your Creative Writing class, encourage your students to start listening to the way others speak. Where do they pause? What slang do they use? When do they use complete sentences and when don’t they? You can even ask students to jot down conversations they overhear.

A great writer has an ear for dialogue, and this skill begins when students become aware of speech around them. Encouraging them to eavesdrop will help them write realistic dialogue later. Just remind them to be respectful. Eavesdropping in the cafeteria is one thing. Listening outside someone’s bedroom door is another.

Our students not only struggle with mimicking real, authentic speech, but they also struggle with punctuating it. Depending on the skill level of your students, you may have to pick your battles here. Cheesy speech might be worth ignoring if there’s no quotation mark in sight.

Tips for Teaching Dialogue Writing

First, and foremost, I like to cover punctuating dialogue first. For one reason, it’s because punctuating dialogue is either right or wrong. It’s easier to learn something that is objective.

For another reason, I, personally, can’t stand reading poorly punctuated dialogue. My English teacher’s eyes just can’t see past it.

Only once the quotation marks, commas, and periods are at least close to the right spot do I focus on trying to improve the content of students’ dialogue.

Students’ dialogue writing is only going to get better through practice and observing real-life speech. However, you can give them some tips for writing dialogue better.

For example, remind your students not to have characters talk too much . I’ve seen stories with pages and pages of dialogue. Each character’s every little “hi,” “‘sup?” and “‘nothin’ much” gets recorded. Let your students know they can skip anything that doesn’t add value to the story.

If you need help planning this lesson, I have a done-for-you Dialogue Mini-lesson right here. It includes a slideshow lesson, worksheets for focusing on both punctuation and craft, and a writing exercise. Get it here.

Creative Writing Skills #4: Mood

If you can only teach your students the above Creative Writing skills, you will no doubt improve their writing tremendously. But if you want to take your students’ writing up a notch, encourage them to think about the mood in their poetry and stories.

Students will no doubt have heard this literary term from their regular English classes, but it’s always worth reviewing first. Plus, they’ve probably read for mood, but creating it is a totally different game.

Tips for Teaching Mood

There are so many ways you can teach your students to create mood. It’s a pretty fun topic!

You might want to begin with some brainstorming. Like, what kind of mood might a horror story have? A comedy? You want students to understand why, as a writer, mastering mood is important to them.

Then, like always, you’ll want to share some solid mentor texts. I love horror stories for showcasing well-written mood, but love poems are also good for this.

Whenever possible in Creative Writing, I like to mix up the media, so I have students first analyze the mood of various classic paintings. As an English teacher, it tickles me to show students that these literary terms apply to art of all kind. Film clips would work really well, too.

Then, challenge students to write a scene and evoke a specific mood. You could randomly assign the mood or let students pick.

In my Mood Mini-Lesson , I have students analyze the mood in painting first. Then, I have them choose a card. Each card has a different mood written on it. Then, students must describe a setting that evokes that mood. You can get this mood lesson for yourself here.

Creative Writing Skills #5: Tone

Well, if you’re going to teach mood, then tone is the likely next skill, right?

Teaching tone and mood is important because their differences are subtle, but important. Until students study tone, they might mistake it for mood and mix the two together.

I never expect my students to master tone. It’s difficult and something that even professional writers polish over the course of many drafts. But it doesn’t hurt to get students thinking about the impact of their word choice.

Don’t forget to remind students of the importance of choosing those precise and concise words. With tone, it’s truly what makes a difference.

Tips for Teaching Tone

After defining tone and showing great examples of it to your students, give them some space to practice identifying it.

Cover for It's Lit Teaching product: Creative Writing Mini Lesson and Workshop Tone

I like to cover informal and formal tones–not just emotional tones. Identifying whether a piece of writing is formal or informal is a great first step for students. It’s a little easier but an important skill and might give your students a bit of confidence in their tone-identifying skills.

Once they know what tone looks like, they can try to create it themselves.

The activity I do involves having students write a short scene.

I randomly give my students a tone to use. I also randomly give them a situation. So, a student may have to describe “eating lunch in the cafeteria” with a “romantic” tone. The results can be pretty entertaining!

If that sounds like a lesson you’d like, you can get my Tone Mini-Lesson right here . Includes are a slideshow, students worksheets, and the slips for tones and situations.

And, if you’re teaching mood and tone, I have a FREE Mood and Tone Handout right here!

Creative Writing Skills #6: Voice

I put voice last in this blog post, but it could just as easily have been first. Voice is difficult to define for students, but it’s something they should be working on crafting throughout your whole Creative Writing class.

Even if your students never quite master their literary voice (who does?), it’s a good skill to discuss with them. If students understand the concept of literary voice, it will make them better writers and more analytical readers.

Tips for Teaching Literary Voice

You’ll first have to define voice for your students. This can be challenging. It might be easier to focus on a few aspects of voice–like diction or syntax–in order to explain the concept.

Discuss with students their favorite authors. What does their “voice” sound like? What about the authors you’ve read and studied together?

Give students examples of strong voice to examine (the stronger the better). Have them discuss the techniques and style of each mentor text.

To drive this home, I do a fun activity with my students. I take three very different poems by authors with very different voices. Then, I cut them up, line by line, and mix the three poems together. My students are then tasked with putting the poems back together!

To do this successfully, they’ll have to look for styles that match. Rhyming may be part of one author’s voice, but not another. One author may create a dark mood while another uses humor consistently. It’s a great way to drive home how voice can be an author’s calling card.

This activity and some additional practice are included in my Voice Mini-lesson . Also included is a slideshow to introduce the concept. You can save yourself some time and get the lesson here.

These are some skills that I think are essential for any Creative Writing class. There’s no one right way to teach any of these skills, and teaching from multiple angles is best.

Whenever possible, I like to make my Creative Writing lessons hands-on. Even the most die-hard students get sick of writing every minute of every class.

If you, too, would like some hands-on lessons and short activities that cover these essential skills, check out my Creative Writing Workshops Bundle . Each lesson includes everything you need to teach, model, and help your students master these skills one at a time.

Cover for It's Lit Teaching Product: Creative Writing Workshops Mini Lessons Bundle

The Daring English Teacher on Teachers Pay Teachers Secondary ELA resources Middle School ELA High School English

How to Incorporate Creative Writing in the Classroom

Creative writing is an essential aspect of teaching English that teachers should incorporate into the classroom. It is useful for students to know that writing is not always based solely on analysis or explanation, but can be used for expression as well. Here are a few ways in which to include creative writing in your lessons and why this is such a valuable lesson:

1. Take a few minutes every day in class to have your students free write.

Allowing students to express themselves through free writing will give them the confidence to begin writing in more creative ways. Have the students write as creatively as they want to get the creative energy flowing. Free writing is a great tool to get your students practicing their writing.

Free writing will also teach students how to be confident in their thoughts. Since students won’t spend a long time free-writing, they will trust their instincts and feel proud of what they write at the moment. Also, with the experience of free writing, their writing in other essays and assignments will improve due to this increase in confidence.

2. Give your students creative prompts.

Creative prompts will allow students to begin their creative writing journey with a little bit of help. Prompts can also be fun and be engaging in the classroom. Some examples of prompts are: write a scene that begins with the lines, “That night, though I didn’t know it at the time, was the beginning of the end;” write about the moment you were the happiest you have ever been; or write about the biggest mistake you have ever made.

Creative prompts will give students the freedom of creative writing and the benefits of expressing oneself, but will also keep students writing creatively, especially if students have a tough time coming up with prompts themselves. I think when students are well-versed in writing creatively, with assistance from their teachers, they will grow to become stronger writers overall.

3. As a class, brainstorm different character profiles.

With this exercise, students can learn how to create characters that they both like and understand as people. Have students focus on details and traits to make characters both realistic and exciting. This will teach them what makes a good character. What qualities do students appreciate in the characters they read and write about? What are the specific characteristics that students feel are important to know when writing these characters?

Once a student understands what goes into creating a character, he or she will be able to recognize how the different novels you study use these characters to tell the story.

4. Read short stories to give students inspiration for their writing.

While this is not precisely the students writing for practice in creative writing, reading other original works will help to inspire them. Have the students look for moments in the stories that inspire them and annotate where they see different rhetorical and literary devices working, and where things are not working in their own opinion.

Having your students pay attention to what they are reading and what they find works in a creative piece will make them realize their style of writing. Once they know what they like in their writing, their confidence will only increase and their writing, both creative and analytical, will be for the better. Teaching Unit: Intro to Short Stories .

5. Assign creative writing with the novels you read.

When reading different novels in class, there may be parts that are difficult for students to grasp and often you may want to try new ways of teaching them to help with the difficulty. A fun way of changing things up when teaching a novel is to assign a creative writing challenge such as rewriting a specific part of the book. This will give students a chance to write in a way they may have never tried before. Ask them what they would change if they could.

This will again give students the confidence they need to write both creative pieces and essays. Since they will have the power to change an already approved scene in a well-acclaimed novel, they will feel like their opinion matters and that they could write as well as some of the great authors. Reading a novel in class? Try THIS novel resource pack that works with any work of fiction

Writing Resources:

Descriptive Writing Narrative Writing QUOTE IT! Adding Dialogue to Narratives

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Creative Writing for the Classroom

Teach Creative Writing In High School With 10 Fun Activities

Creative writing is a meaningful aspect of literature that mandates you to utilize your expertise, ingenuity, and story to depict a critical message, emotion, or plot. It defies the traditional bounds of other forms of writing and is completely subjective to our preferences and experiences. In creative writing, it’s all about imaginativeness!

Using creative imagination and originality to convey feelings and concepts in a unique way is at the heart of creative writing. Simply stated, it’s about infusing your own ‘flair’ into your writing, moving beyond academic or other technical kinds of literature.

In this post, we will explore the various activities which would be advantageous for a high schooler who wishes to indulge in creative writing!

What Happens When Creative Writing Is Put To Use?

Creative writing is any form of writing that deviates from traditional professional, investigative journalism, educational, or technological forms of literature. It is typically distinguished by emphasizing narrative craft, character development, literary tropes, or various poetic traditions.

Here are the few ways how high schoolers can benefit from creative writing –

1. Imagination

When you write creatively, you expand your imagination by creating new environments, scenarios, and characters. This way, you are also boosting and stretching your imagination, as well as “thinking out of the box.” This allows you to concentrate your energy on many other things and improve your ability to find fresh ideas and alternatives to problems you’re having. Whether you’re a researcher or a businessman, creative writing will increase your imagination and help you think more creatively, and push the boundaries.

2. Empathy and Communications skills

When you create characters, you’ll be constructing emotions, personalities, behaviors, and world views that are distinct from your own. Writers must conceive personalities, emotions, places, and walks of life outside of their own lives while creating universes with fictional characters and settings.

This can give children a good dose of empathy and understanding for those who aren’t like them, who don’t live where they do or go through the same things they do daily. Writers are better equipped to communicate when they have a greater understanding of other points of view. They can come up with creative ways to explain and debate subjects from multiple perspectives. This ability is crucial in both professional and personal situations.

3. Clarification of Thoughts

Creating structures in creative writing allows you to organize your impressions and emotions into a logical procedure. You may express both your thoughts and your sentiments through creative writing. For example, if you’re a marketing executive, you could create a short tale in which your clientele reads your promotional emails. You can guess what they’re up to, where they’re seated, what’s around them, and so on.

This enables you to focus on the language and strategies you employ. Alternatively, if you’re a technical writer writing on a new desktop platform, you could create a creative scenario in which a user encounters a problem.

4. Broadens Vocabulary and gets a better understanding of reading and writing

You’ll learn a larger vocabulary and a better understanding of the mechanics of reading and writing as you begin to practice writing exercises regularly. Even if you’re writing a budget report, you’ll know when rigid grammar standards work and when they don’t, and you’ll know what will make your writing flow better for your readers. Exploring different ways of expressing yourself when writing creatively allows you to extend your vocabulary.

You’ll notice a change in your use and range of language as you improve your writing over time, which will be useful in any professional route and social scenario. You’ll be able to bend and break the rules when you need to, to utilize your voice and make what you’re writing engaging without coming off as an amateur, dull, or inauthentic once you’ve grasped the fundamentals of writing professionally and creatively.

5. Building Self-Belief

When you write creatively, you’re actively involved in an activity that allows you to fully develop your voice and point of view without being constrained. You have a better chance to investigate and express your feelings about various issues, opinions, ideas, and characters. And you’ll feel more at ease and secure stating your thoughts and perspectives in other things you write as a result of this.

Writers who don’t write creatively may be concerned about appearing authoritative or trustworthy. They accidentally lose their voice and sound like drones spouting statistics by omitting to include their perspective on the topics they’re writing about. As a result, they miss out on using their distinct voice and presenting themselves as an expert with real-world expertise.

Creative Writing Activities That Will Strengthen Your Writing Skills

Short spurts of spontaneous writing make up creative writing activities. These writing exercises push a writer to tackle a familiar topic in a new way, ranging from one line to a lengthy tale. Short, spontaneous projects are common in creative writing programs, but any writer should make them a regular practice to extend their abilities and learn new tactics to approach a series of stories.

These activities must be performed for ten minutes at a time, several times a week – by creative writers. They’re designed to help you improve your writing abilities, generate fresh story ideas, and become a better writer.

1. Free Writing

Writing is the first and foremost activity that is going to give your creative writing a boost. Start with a blank page and let your stream of thoughts and emotions flow. Then simply begin writing. Don’t pause to think or alter what you’re expressing. This is known as “free writing.” This writing activity is referred to as “morning pages” by Julia Cameron, the author of ‘The Artist’s Way.’ She recommends that authors do this every day when they first wake up. Stream of consciousness writing can provide some intriguing concepts.

Allow your intellect to take the lead as your fingers type. Or write a letter to your younger self. Consider a topic you’d like to discuss, such as a noteworthy event, and write it down. Give guidance or convey a message that you wish you had heard as a youngster or a young adult.

2. Modify a Storyline – Read

Most of us like to read. However, just reading won’t really help augment your creative writing skills. While reading bestows insight into the deeper meanings of numerous things, you need a more concrete approach to better your aptitude. To do this, you can modify any storyline. Take an episode from a chapter, if you’re feeling brave—from one of your favorite books and recreate it. Write it from the perspective of a different character. Swap out the main character in this exercise to examine how the story may be conveyed differently.

Take Percy Jackson’s thrilling conclusion, for instance, and rework it with Annabeth as the primary character. Another way to approach this creative activity is to keep the primary character but switch viewpoints. Rewrite a scene in the third person if the writer has told a story in the first person.

3. Add Creative Writing Prompts or Create Flash Fiction

Use writing prompts, often known as narrative starters, to produce writing ideas. A writing prompt is a sentence or short excerpt that a writer uses to start composing a story on the spot. You can look up writing prompts online, pick a sentence out of a magazine at random, or use a brilliant line from a well-known work as the start of your short scene.

Another thing you can do to accentuate your writing is to create flash fiction. Sit down at your desktop or pick up a pen and paper and write a 500-word story on the spur of the moment. This isn’t the same as just writing whatever comes to mind. With no fixed guidelines, free writing generates a stream of consciousness. All of the basic components of a story arc, such as plot, conflict, and character development, are required in flash fiction, albeit in a shortened form.

4. Create a Fictitious Advertisement

Pick a random word from a nearby book or newspaper and create a fictitious commercial for it. Write one ad in a formal, abbreviated newspaper classified format to require you to pay special attention to your word choice to sell the item. Then write one for an online marketplace that allows for longer, more casual text, such as Craigslist. Describe the item and persuade the reader to purchase it in each one.

5. Engage in Conversations

Engaging in conversations with your friends/family – or simply communicating can help brush up your writing skills. Talk to your loved ones about their hobbies, career, views on societal issues – any suitable topic for that matter. This helps implement others’ points of view and expands your mental ability. Another useful thing that you can do is – make another person’s tale and create it by implementing your own thoughts. Then talk about it in an impeccable manner. Also, talk in complete sentences. This goes to show your Linguistic intelligence proficiency – and helps augment your creative writing skills.

6. Create Your Own Website/Blog

Start your search for blogging. There are a million writing suggestions out there, but they all boil down to the same thing: write. Blogging is excellent writing practice because it gives you a place to write regularly.

To keep your fingers and mind nimble, write a post every day. Like most bloggers, you’ll want to restrict your subject—perhaps you’ll focus on parenting or start a how-to site where you can tell stories from your point of view.

7. Participate in Debates/Extempores

Participating in debates, extempores – anchoring for your school function, giving a speech, all of these activities help boost your creative spirit. These group events make you understand what other people are envisioning, which in turn helps you generate new ideas, approaches, and methods. Not only do they improve your articulation and research skills, but they also develop critical thinking and emotional control abilities. All of these promote a better creative writing aptitude.

8. Start a YouTube Channel or Podcast

Starting a YouTube channel or podcast will definitely level up your creative game. YouTube is a never-ending platform, covering myriads of topics. Choose a particular niche for your channel.

Then do your topic research, create content, manage SEO, approach brands, talk to clients and influencers – do all the good stuff. Communicating with other influencers and creating content will take your creative writing skills to another level. Starting a podcast will have a similar impact.

9. Love them? Say it with your words!

We have many festivals, occasions, birthdays, parties, anniversaries and whatnot! You can employ these special days and boost your creative writing skills. You can make a token of love for them – writing about your feelings. You can also make gift cards, birthday cards, dinner menus, and so on. So let’s say, it’s your mother’s birthday, you can write her a token of love, elucidating your feelings and letting her know what all she’s done for you and that you’re grateful. Do this for all your near and dear ones. This not only spreads positivity and love but helps you develop your creative aptitude.

10. The What-if Game

The What-If game is an incredible way to upgrade your creative abilities. You can play this game with your friends, cousins, relatives, or solo. Here, you need to find links to many interesting hypothetical questions. For instance, what if the sun doesn’t rise for a week? What if there’s no oxygen for one minute? Play it with your peeps, or ask these questions to yourself. It can be anything random but concrete. If you don’t know the answers to the questions, look them up on Google. This way, you’re training your mind to learn new concepts all the while enhancing your visualization process.

We can conclude that creative writing encourages students to think creatively, use their imaginations, imply alternatives, expand their thinking processes, and improve their problem-solving skills. It also allows the child to express themselves and grow their voice. Besides, it enhances reasoning abilities. The principle behind the creative writing concept is that everyone can gain the qualities that are needed to become a successful writer or, rather become good at writing. Creative writing is all about using language in new and innovative ways.

Sananda Bhattacharya, Chief Editor of TheHighSchooler, is dedicated to enhancing operations and growth. With degrees in Literature and Asian Studies from Presidency University, Kolkata, she leverages her educational and innovative background to shape TheHighSchooler into a pivotal resource hub. Providing valuable insights, practical activities, and guidance on school life, graduation, scholarships, and more, Sananda’s leadership enriches the journey of high school students.

Explore a plethora of invaluable resources and insights tailored for high schoolers at TheHighSchooler, under the guidance of Sananda Bhattacharya’s expertise. You can follow her on Linkedin

Creativity and Innovation in the Writing Classroom

Learn more about how to teach creativity and innovation along with, and as an important part of, traditional writing and research skills.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou

Creativity is fundamental to the teaching of writing. Although WR 153 focuses specifically on creativity and innovation, all WR courses ask students to approach their reading, viewing, writing, and research in creative ways. One important approach to creativity is “design thinking,” which emphasizes that creativity is a non-linear, iterative process. Design thinking is based on two foundational assumptions:

Everyone can be creative.
Creativity can be taught.

The principles of design thinking can be used in any WR course to teach students that creativity is a process of asking questions, using multiple strategies and approaches in answering those questions, taking risks in conceiving and executing original work, developing and refining ideas in response to feedback, and learning from productive failure. The metacognitive aspects of design thinking invite students to think about their own creative processes and identify factors that promote creativity.

Although WR 153 is structured by the steps of the design process (understand, empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, assess/reflect), all WR courses can benefit from incorporating elements of design thinking and an emphasis on creativity and innovation. Approaching writing instruction in this way can:

Increase student engagement by focusing on creative responses to problems that students care about;
Give students a sense of agency as a result of greater choice in what to write and how to write about it;
Encourage taking intellectual risks and reward productive failure as a means of learning;
Help students develop skills that are transferrable to other academic situations and their professional lives; and
Enhance students’ personal lives by allowing them to learn about themselves and their own creative potential.

Principles of Design Thinking

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative approach to creativity that involves between three and seven steps. Although it is based on theories of design practice that go back to the early twentieth century, it has most recently been popularized by the design firm IDEO and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, commonly known as the d.school. The process involves understanding the issues involved in a design project, empathizing with the audience for an end product, defining the scope of the project, generating ideas for and creating prototypes of the product, testing and assessing those ideas and prototypes, and revisiting the steps of the design process until a final product is created.

The complete set of seven steps can be applied to the writing process in a WR course:

Understand: Students develop a foundation for their work by exploring issues and approaches relevant to the course topic, as well as previous work in the field.

Empathize: Students practice empathy by demonstrating their awareness and understanding of the audience for whom they write or create.

Define: Based on their observations and insights, students articulate a problem or question that will motivate their work over the course of the semester.

Ideate: Students generate new ideas and possible solutions by challenging assumptions and engaging in a variety of creative activities.

Prototype: Students start to create solutions and implement their ideas into written, digital or other forms in order to capture ideas, but also redefine choices.

Test: Students share drafts with others in order to gain feedback and insight into improving final versions.

Assess/Reflect: Students reflect on and evaluate their peers’ and their own processes and final outcomes.

The steps of the design thinking process are not meant to be followed in a rigid way. They should be flexible and customizable to the particular project: students may need to define, ideate, and prototype multiple times and in various modes/genres before they are ready to create a final draft. The skills students gain in going though these steps should be transferrable to other projects and courses.

Learn more about design thinking:

“What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?” by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang provides an overview of design thinking.
David Kelly of IDEO explains the history of design thinking in “How to Design Breakthrough Inventions,” an interview with 60 Minutes .
“How to Solve Problems Like a Designer,” which includes an interview with Tim Brown of IDEO, explains the basic principles of design thinking.

Understand and Empathize

The first step of the design process asks students to understand not only the course material, but also the resources necessary for their particular project. Since this usually involves additional reading/viewing, the “understand” step is part of the research and information literacy component of WR15X. Assignments that focus on this step may include conducting library or online research, categorizing research material using BEAM/BEAT, and creating annotated bibliographies.

Define, Ideate, and Prototype

Before they begin the process of generating ideas, it is often useful for students to define, at least in a preliminary way, what question or problem their paper/project is addressing. Assignments that help students define their projects may include questionnaires that ask students to state what they intend to work on and why, as well as more formal paper/project proposals.

In the IDEO design process, the goal of ideation is to generate a multitude of ideas without rejecting those that may seem impractical or even silly. Ideas can be rejected later, after a sufficient number of ideas have been generated. The most common ideation assignment involves various forms of brainstorming, often in teams. Ideas should be written down in some way, such as on sticky notes or index cards. To encourage divergent thinking in the brainstorming process, consider posting some fundamental principles in the classroom, such as these from IDEO:

Defer judgment.
Encourage wild ideas.
Stay focused on the topic.
Build on the ideas of others .

In the IDEO design process, prototypes are models that can be easily revised and even discarded if necessary. Prototypes for writing courses might include outlines, storyboards, slide decks, oral or video presentations, and preliminary drafts. Prototypes should be tested and assessed in some way that allows for reconsideration and revision before students turn in their final products.

Learn more about brainstorming and prototyping:

“What is Brainstorming?” by Rikke Friis Dam and Teo Yu Siang provides helpful information and ideas for the ideation step of the design process.
This example of “Brainstorming at IDEO” shows one popular way of brainstorming with sticky notes.

Test and Assess/Reflect

The final steps of the design process, testing and assessing/reflecting, are not meant to be the final steps in completing a student’s paper/project. After testing and assessing a prototype, students will likely need to reconsider and revise their papers/projects, which will take them back to earlier steps—they may need to conduct further research, generate additional ideas, or refine their prototypes. The design process is meant to be iterative, with students returning to steps in the process as needed until they have completed a final draft.

Just as designers test their prototypes, students should test drafts of their papers/projects by sharing them with others. Assignments that focus on this step usually involve workshopping with one or more peers, but testing may also include making an oral or video presentation to the class, meeting with the professor or a writing tutor, or sharing the student’s work with any other reader/viewer capable of providing feedback. Students may also test their papers/projects using techniques such as reverse outlining to assess the strength and clarity of their arguments.

The final step in the design process, assessing the student’s work, may lead back to any earlier step as students come to understand what they still need to work on to complete their papers/projects. This step may also involve the broader metacognitive task of reflecting on the student’s creative process. Assignments that focus on this step may include a variety of reflective exercises, including a final reflection for the course.

A Note on Assessment

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett

Because WR 153 courses can include such a wide range of papers and project, contract grading is recommended. Other WR courses that incorporate creativity and innovation may also wish to use contract grading, either for specific assignments or the course as a whole. More information on contract grading can be found here .

An important component of creativity and innovation is productive failure. We learn to create new things or develop new skills by failing and trying again until we succeed. Productive failure is failure that leads to new knowledge, insight, or innovation. Courses that focus on creativity can encourage productive failure by requiring prototypes that will be reconsidered and revised extensively, asking students to share examples of failure as valuable learning experiences, and assigning reflective work on how students have grown through failure over the course of the semester.

Learn more about productive failure:

Both readings below argue for the importance of productive failure. The Burger article contains specific examples of how to validate and reward productive failure in the classroom.

“Next Time, Fail Better” by Paula M. Krebs, The Chronicle of Higher Education , May 11, 2012.

Inspire Thoughtful Creative Writing Through Art

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A few years ago, I showed my sixth graders The Gulf Stream by Winslow Homer. It's an epic painting of a young black sailor in a small broken boat, surrounded by flailing sharks, huge swells, and a massive storm in the distance. I asked my students the simple question, "What's happening?" The responses ranged from "He's a slave trying to escape" to "He's a fisherman lost at sea." The common theme with the responses, though, was the tone -- most students were very concerned for his welfare. "That boat looks rickety. I think he’s going to get eaten by the sharks," was a common refrain. Then a very quiet, shy girl raised her hand. "It's OK, he'll be fine," she said. "The ship will save him."

The room got quiet as everyone stared intently at the painting. I looked closely at it. "What ship?" I responded. The young girl walked up to the image and pointed to the top left corner. Sure enough, faded in the smoky distance was a ship.

This revelation changed the tone and content of the conversation that followed. Some thought it was the ship that would save him. Others thought it was the ship that cast him off to his death. Would the storm, sharks, or ship get him? The best part of this intense debate was hearing the divergent, creative responses. Some students even argued. The written story produced as a result of analyzing this image was powerful.

Since this experience, I have developed strategies that harness the power of observation, analysis, and writing through my art lessons.

Children naturally connect thoughts, words, and images long before they master the skill of writing. This act of capturing meaning in multiple symbol systems and then vacillating from one medium to another is called transmediation . While using art in the classroom, students transfer this visual content, and then add new ideas and information from their personal experiences to create newly invented narratives. Using this three-step process of observe, interpret, and create helps kids generate ideas, organize thoughts, and communicate effectively.

Step 1: Observe

Asking students to look carefully and observe the image is fundamental to deep, thoughtful writing. Keep this in mind when choosing art to use in class. Look for images with:

Many details: If it is a simple image, there's not much to analyze.
Characters: There should be people or animals in the image to write about.
Colors: Find colors that convey a mood.
Spatial relationships: How do the background and foreground relate?

Lead your students through the image. "I like it" is not the answer we are looking for. Ask questions that guide the conversation. Encourage divergent answers and challenge them. Try these questions:

What shapes do you see? Do they remind you of anything?
What colors do you see? How do those colors make you feel?
What patterns do you see? How are they made?
Do you see any unusual textures? What do they represent?
What is the focal point of the image? How did the artist bring your attention to the focal point?
How did the artist create the illusion of space in the image?
If you were living in the picture and could look all around you, what would you see?
If you were living in the picture, what would you smell? What would you hear?

Keep your questions open-ended, and record what students say so that they'll have a reference for later. Identify and challenge assumptions. At this point, we are not looking for inferences or judgments, just observations.

Step 2: Make Inferences by Analyzing Art

Once they have discussed what they see, students then answer the question, "What is happening?" They must infer their answers from the image and give specific reasons for their interpretations.

For example, while looking at The Gulf Stream , one student said, "The storm already passed and is on its way out. You can tell because the small boat the man is on has been ripped apart and the mast is broken." That is what we are looking for in their answers: rational thoughts based on inferences from data in the picture. No two responses will be exactly the same, but they can all be correct as long as the student can coherently defend his or her answer with details from the image. When children express their opinions based on logic and these details, they are analyzing art and using critical thinking skills.

Here are some tips to model a mature conversation about art:

Give adequate wait time. We are often so rushed that we don't give children time to think and reflect.
Ask students to listen to, think about, and react to the ideas of others.
Your questions should be short and to the point.
Highlight specific details to look at while analyzing art (characters, facial expressions, objects, time of day, weather, colors, etc.).
Explain literal vs. symbolic meaning (a spider's web can be just that, or it can symbolize a trap).

Step 3: Create

After thoughtful observation and discussion, students are abuzz with ideas. For all of the following writing activities, they must use details from the image to support their ideas. Here are just a few of the many ways we can react to art:

For Younger Students:

Locate and describe shapes and patterns.
Describe time of day and mood of scene.
Describe a character in detail with a character sketch. Characters may be people, animals, or inanimate objects.
Write a story based on this image including a brand new character.
Give students specific vocabulary that they must incorporate into their story.

For Older Students:

Write down the possible meaning of the image, trade with a partner, and persuade your partner to believe that your story is the correct one based on details in the image.
Identify characters and their motives. Who are they and what do they want? Explain how you know based on details.
Pretend that you are in the image, and describe what you see, smell, feel, and hear.
Describe the details that are just outside of the image, the ones we can’t see.
Introduce dialogue into your story. What are they saying?
Sequence the events of the story. What happened five minutes before this scene, what is happening now, and what happens five minutes later? How do you know?
Write from the perspective of one of the characters in the image.
Explain who is the protagonist and antagonist. What is their conflict?

Thinking and Communicating

We don’t know what the future holds for our students, but we do know that they will have to think critically, make connections, and communicate clearly. Art can help students do that. During this year's commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence College, Fareed Zakaria said, "It is the act of writing that forces me to think through them [ideas] and sort them out." Art can be that link to helping students organize their ideas and produce coherent, thoughtful writing.

As you consider teaching writing through art, I recommend reading In Pictures and in Words by Kate Wood Ray and Beth Olshansky's PictureWriting.org website.

How have you used the arts to inspire creative thinking in your students? Please tell us about it in the comments.

Grades 6-12
School Leaders

Have You Seen Our List of Favorite Graphic Novels?

10 Creative Writing Activities That Help Students Tell Their Stories

Lower the stakes and help them get started.

Share your story message written on three post it notes

“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.

A students I Am From creative writing activities

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

collage of historical images creative writing activities

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…

Fry Bread, I Can Make this Promise, and Give Me Some Truth Books

15 Books by Indigenous Authors for the Classroom

Authentic stories from past and present. Continue Reading

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51 Creative Writing Activities For The Classroom: Comics, Prompts, Games, And Pretend Play

January 4, 2024 // by Milka Kariuki

Creative writing can be tough for learners of any age. From knowing where to start to establishing the vocabulary to develop their story, there are a bunch of different skills they’ll need to perfect their creative writing pieces. There are so many creative writing activities out there, but which ones are best for your kiddos? Our list of 51 creative writing activities is the perfect place to start looking if you’ve got a creative writing unit coming up! Read on and see which ones might grab your little writers’ attention!

1. Make Your Own Comic Books

We bet your kiddos just love comic books! Let them create their very own in the style of the super popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid books! Encourage your students to come up with their own plot, dialogue, and illustrations to spark their creativity. Even your most reluctant writers will love this fun activity!

Learn More: Puffin Schools

2. Mad Libs

Using Mad Libs is a super popular way to develop your little creative writers! Use these free printables to get their creative juices flowing as they try to come up with words to fill the gaps to create weird and wonderful new stories. The best thing is that you can use these printables as many times as you like as their answers will be different each time!

Learn More: Teacher Vision

3. Flash Fiction

Flash fiction is a fantastic way to get your kiddies writing creatively while keeping things short and sweet! Use the range you prompts included in this resource to challenge them to write a creative story in less than 100 words. Flash fiction is amazing because your students won’t be overwhelmed by a huge writing task and it also means that your more confident writers will need to focus on the quality of their work, not the quantity!

Learn More: TES

4. Write a Story Based on the Ending

Test your students’ creativity by providing them with writing prompts that start at the end! In backward story writing, your budding writers will need to plan and pen a story that eventually leads to the ending you give them. This idea is a fantastic way to turn your traditional creative writing lesson on its head and in many ways take the pressure off your kids, as ending their stories is often the most difficult part for them!

Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers

5. Found Poetry

Your learners will love this fun and creative found poetry activity. You can encourage them to collect words or a group of words from a favorite story or song then write them on a piece of paper or cut them out of a printed page. The overall goal is to have them rearrange the words differently to make an interesting poem with a unique writing style or genre!

Learn More: Homeschooling Ideas

6. Picture Dictionary

A picture dictionary is a brilliant way to support every member of your younger elementary class in their creative writing. The words paired with pictures give your writers a ‘dictionary’ that they can use pretty independently, so your less confident writers or non-native English-speaking students can still access your writing lessons!

Learn More: Twinkl

7. Creative Journal Writing

Why not start a creative journal with your kiddos? Have them engage in daily journaling activities by giving them a different creative prompt each day. For instance, write a story about what would happen if dogs took over the world or what would you do if you were the security guard at a zoo and someone stole an animal? The fun is never-ending with these prompts!

Learn More: Think Written

8. Roll a Story

Roll-a-Story is one of the best ways to help any of your kids who are suffering from a bout of writer’s block! They’ll roll the dice to discover the character, setting, and problem for their story then set to work weaving their creative tale! It could be a story about a wise doctor being chased by a mysterious creature in a casino, or maybe a rich artist losing their wallet in a library. Then it’s up to your students to fill in the gaps!

Learn More: TPT

9. Pass-it-on Story Writing

There’s no telling quite where this fun writing game will end up! Start by writing the first sentence of a story on a piece of paper then pass it around your class, having your kids come up with a sentence that continues the story. The paper is then passed around the whole class until every student has contributed. Finally, once it makes its way back to you, read out your collaborative story to the whole class!

Learn More: Minds In Bloom

10. Picture Writing Prompts

Creative writing prompts activities test not only your little ones’ imaginations but also their ability to craft a story and dialogue from that. Display an intriguing picture prompt for your class and have a discussion about it, recording their ideas. You could discuss what the person or animal in the picture is doing or what they’re thinking, where they think the picture was taken, and much more. They can use your collective notes to inspire their story!

Learn More: Pandora Post

11. What’s the Question?

What’s the Question is a simple, yet super engaging game that requires your young learners to think creatively. Spark their creativity by writing an answer on the whiteboard such as “the moon would explode,” and task your kiddos with coming up with a question to match it. There’ll be lots of laughs as everyone shares what they came up with!

Learn More: That Afterschool Life

12. Creative Writing Printables

This website is absolutely full of quick and fun graphics for children that’ll encourage their creative writing! The cute graphics and simple directions make it an easy bellringer activity for your writing class. Just print out some of these cool sheets and let your students get creative as they write thank-you notes to helpful heroes or finish little cartoon comics!

Learn More: Jarrett Lerner

13. Paint Chip Poetry

Nothing says creative writing quite like figurative language! Grab some of these free paint swatches from your local home improvement store and have your students create metaphors about their chosen color! We love this low-prep activity as once your kids have finished their poems, they’re a ready-made multi-colored display that’ll brighten the walls of your classroom!

Learn More: Fabulous In Fifth

14. Story Storm Activities

Once again, these Jarrett Lerner activities do not disappoint! Your students will have a blast pretending they are the principal for a day and they’ll get to create their very own rules for the school. Not only will this be an engaging writing exercise that we’re sure they’ll love getting creative with, but it also challenges children to think about why rules in school are important.

Learn More: Tara Lazar

15. Story Bag

Story bags are a fantastic way to destroy any kind of writer’s block! Grab an assortment of random objects from your home or classroom and pop them into the story bag. Next, gather your students around and pull out all the objects in the bag. Can they then write a story connecting all the items? Be sure to leave time to let them share their stories at the end of the lesson!

Learn More: Life Hack

16. Change the Ending

An easy way to ease your kiddos into the writing process is by having them rewrite part of a story. Grab their favorite read-aloud, and challenge them to come up with a new ending! They’ll need to finish the story in a way that makes sense, but aside from that, they can be as creative as they like! Your reluctant readers will like this one as much of the work on setting and characters has already been done!

Learn More: Make Beliefs Comix

17. Plot Twist Writing Prompts

BUT WAIT – there’s a twist…This fun writing practice is perfect for older middle or high school but could also be simplified for younger students. Write these twist prompts on notecards and have your kids draw one each before letting them go off and write a story around their chosen twist! They’ll be eager to share their finished work with classmates at the end. After all, who doesn’t love a good plot twist?

Learn More: Pinterest

18. Craft Box Craft

Every kid loves the book The Day the Crayons Quit for its creative narrative about this familiar box of coloring supplies! This extension activity rolls art and creative writing into one! Your students will have fun coming up with dialogue for each of the different crayons and you could even make it into a fun display for your classroom walls!

Learn More: Buggy And Buddy

19. Dialogue Pictures

Personalizing writing activities always makes it more engaging for kids! Print out a picture of yourself with a blank speech bubble, and model how to add in some dialogue. Then, let your kiddos practice speech bubbling with a photo of themselves, a pet, or a favorite celebrity, and have them come up with some interesting things for each of their subjects to say!

Learn More: SSS Teaching

20. Figurative Language Tasting

Your students will be creative writers in no time after practicing their figurative language with food tasting! Not only do tasty treats make this activity incredibly fun, but it also brings the writing process of metaphors and hyperbole to life. Just give each of your kids a few pieces of candy or snacks, and have them practice writing figures of speech relating to each one! They’ll have the words on the tip of their tongue- literally!

Learn More: It’s Lit Teaching

21. Explode the Moment

One of my favorite writing concepts as a teacher is ‘exploding the moment’. This method is perfect for showing your kiddies that even the smallest moment can be turned into an imaginative, descriptive story! Start by having them brainstorm some ideas and expand on tiny memories like losing a tooth, getting a pet, or making a winning goal in a soccer game!

Learn More: Raise The Bar Reading

22. Round-Robin Storytelling

Round-robin storytelling is the perfect collaborative creative writing activity! This one can be done verbally or in writing, and it challenges your class to build a story using a given set of words. They’ll have a fun and challenging time figuring out how to incorporate each piece into one cohesive story.

Learn More: Random Acts Of Kindness

23. Acrostic Poems

Acrostic poetry is one of the least intimidating creative writing exercises as there are no rules other than starting each line with the letter from a word. Challenge your kiddies to use each letter in their name to write lines of poetry about themselves, or they could choose to write about their favorite food or animal!

Learn More: Surfin’ Through Second

24. Sentence Sticks

This exercise requires minimal prep and can be used in so many different ways. All you’ll need are some craft sticks in which you will write sentences with blanks and word banks. Your young writers can then pull a stick and fill in the blanks to practice creative thinking! Task them with a different goal each time; can they make the sentence silly or sad for example?

Learn More: Liz’s Early Learning Spot

25. Conversation Prompts

These fun prompts require your kids to think creatively and answer a range of interesting questions. They’ll be excited to write stories about waking up with a mermaid tail or describe what is in a mystery package delivered to their doorstep! These creative prompts are perfect for bellringers or transitions throughout the school day!

Learn More: Twitter

26. Pretend Play Writing

Do you remember playing with fake money and fake food when you were younger? This idea takes it a step further by incorporating some writing practice! All you’ll have to do is print the templates for dollars, shopping lists, and recipes then let your little learners have fun with these play-pretend writing ideas!

Learn More: Prekinders

27. Question Cubes

Your class will be on a roll with these amazing question cubes! Whether the cubes are used for responding to a story, brainstorming the plot of a story, or practicing speech and listening, they are an easy, affordable tool for your little readers and writers! You can snag some foam dice at the dollar store and hot glue questions on each side to spark some creative writing ideas for your class.

Learn More: A Love 4 Teaching

28. Balderdash

Not only is Balderdash an addicting board game, but it can even be used in the classroom! Your little learners will have a blast as they create made-up, imaginative definitions for words, important people, and dates. Whoever guesses the real answer out of the mix wins the points!

Learn More: EB Academics

29. Two Sentence Horror Story

This creative writing exercise is best for older students and would be a great one to try out around Halloween! You’ll be challenging your learners to write a story that runs chills up their readers’ spines, but there’s a twist…the story can only be two sentences long! Your kiddos will love writing and sharing their writing to see who can come up with the spookiest short story!

30. Telephone Pictionary

Another game that your kids will be begging to play over and over again is telephone pictionary! The first player will write down a random phrase, and the next person must draw their interpretation of the phrase. The third player will write what they think the picture is and so on!

Learn More: Imagine Forest

31. Consequences

You need at least two players for this fun creative writing game. Each pair or group of kids will start by having one person write a random phrase and conceal it by folding the paper. Then, they pass it to the next student to fill in the blank using the prompt. Once all the blanks are filled in, let them unfold the paper and get ready to reveal some seriously silly stories!

32. Story Wands

Story wands are a fun way to have your kids respond to stories and study what makes something their favorite. Responding to what they’re reading is a super helpful exercise in preparing them for creative writing as it allows your students to connect to their favorite stories. By figuring out what elements make stories great, this is sure to help them in their own creative writing assignments!

Learn More: Little Lifelong Learners

33. The Best Part of Me

Probably my favorite creative writing activity, this one is infused with social-emotional learning and self-esteem building! Let your students get to choose their favorite physical characteristics about themselves; whether it be their eyes, hands, feet, etc. Then, they take a picture to attach to their written reasoning! Make sure to boost the creative element of this writing task by encouraging your learners to use a bunch of adjectives and some figurative language!

Learn More: Sarah Gardner Teaching

34. Me From A-Z

Challenge your kiddos to get creative by coming up with 26 different words to describe themselves! Me From A-Z gives your students the opportunity to explore who they are by coming up with words describing them in some way using each letter of the alphabet. Why not let them decorate their lists and turn them into a display celebrating the uniqueness of each of your class members?

35. How to Make Hot Chocolate

How-to writing is a great way to get the creative writing wheels turning in your kiddies’ brains! They’ll have a fun time coming up with their instructions and ways to explain how to make hot chocolate! Do they have a secret recipe that’ll make the best-ever hot cocoa!? Once they’ve written their instructions, be sure to try them out and do a taste-test of their recipes!

Learn More: Teacher Mama

36. Give Yourself a Hand

Hands up if you love this idea! For this creative writing activity, have your little ones trace their hand on a piece of paper and decorate it with accessories. Then, encourage them to write a list of all the different things they do with their hands all over their tracing! This is a great warm-up to get the creative gears turning.

Learn More: Write Now Troup

37. Word Picture Poem

A word picture poem is a fantastic way to challenge your kids to write descriptive poetry about a common object! Your little poets will learn to find beauty in ordinary things and strengthen their sensory language skills and their vocabulary. For some added fun, you can even task them with writing a short story about the item as well! The results are sure to be fun to read!

Learn More: Teaching With Terhune

38. Shape Poem

Shape poems are some of the most creative poetry as they combine words and art into one! First, your young poets can choose an object to use as their muse and lightly trace an outline onto some paper. Then, they’ll write words along the outlined shape in the form of a poem that describes the object! The result is a bunch of fun and striking poems that’ll look great displayed around your classroom!

39. Crazy Hair Poetry

Here’s another one that combines writing and art! Start by guiding your kiddos in drawing a self-portrait then adding some crazy hair by blowing watercolor paints around! After the paint dries, have your kids come up with a short but creative poem describing their hair art.

Learn More: Grade School Giggles

40. Fingerprint Poetry

Nothing is more creative than getting your kiddies to let down the barriers in their mind and tap into their stream of consciousness! Show them how to pick a topic and then let their words flow straight from mind to paper in a swirling pattern. This fingerprint idea can be used for a get-to-know-you activity as well!

Learn More: Kristen Dembroski

41. Doggie Haiku Poems

Put a fun twist on classic haiku poetry! Your students will have a paw-some time writing three-line poems about dogs which they can then illustrate afterwards! Before starting the activity, you can use Dogku by Andrew Clements as a read-aloud to get your class hooked on this idea!

Learn More: Teaching Fourth

42. Fractured Fairy Tale

Ever wondered if the Big Bad Wolf was framed? Or if Sleeping Beauty was actually a snorer? Your writers in training will have a fun time taking a classic fairytale and putting their own spin on it! Following five simple steps, your kids will be funky fairytale authors in no time!

43. Letter Writing

These creative letter-writing prompts are sure to boost your kiddies’ imaginative writing skills! Whether writing to a pen pal or a favorite celebrity, letter writing is a great way to practice handwriting, word flow, descriptive language, and communicating all rolled into one! Have your writers grab their pencils and let the creativity flow as they write fun response letters to these prompts!

44. Hersey’s Kisses Similes

Teach sensory language and similes by connecting this tasty treat with the sense of taste! Your students will have a lovely time brainstorming how chocolate connects to each of our senses and applying that knowledge by writing some sweet similies! What a fantastic way to teach them how to use these essential creative writing tools!

Learn More: Teacher By The Beach

45. Sensory Poetry

Another great way to teach sensory details is to have your learners write poems about their favorite foods! Task them with writing a line for each sense to describe the food! Everyone will be hungry after this creative writing lesson so it might be a good idea to have some snacks on hand!

Learn More: Mrs. Tice’s Class

46. Season Personification

Each season of weather has an array of characteristics making this the perfect activity to practice personification in creative writing! Allow your little writers to choose a season to write about as if it were a person with human characteristics. Winter is a no-brainer! It’s Elsa!

Learn More: Write Shop

47. Class Book of Character Traits

To be creative writers, your kids need to know how to create realistic characters for their stories. For this class book, you’ll start by giving each student two opposing character traits. Next, have them demonstrate these traits by illustrating two characters and displaying them through dialogue!

Learn More: Crafting Connections

48. Socialgrams

With Instagram being all the rage these days, your kiddos will have a fun time creating a ‘socialgram’ on paper! Challenge them to create a descriptive and engaging caption to go along with their “photo” in the post. Then, classmates can comment on each other’s work!

Learn More: Breezy Special Ed

49. Story Introduction Worksheets

Creative writing worksheets are a simple, minimal-prep tool to use in your creative writing units. Print out a variety of options, and have your kids practice their skills by finishing imaginative story introductions. By giving them a place to start their story, you can really take the pressure off your kids which will help ease them into the creative writing process!

Learn More: Lanternfish ESL

50. Dialogue Worksheets

Here’s another low-prep option for the last-minute planners! Pre-written dialogue can help guide the mood of the story and allow your kiddies to just focus on filling in the characters’ actions. This is also a great way to model how dialogue is spaced out and balanced in a story!

Learn More: ESL Writing Worksheets

51. Character Trait Posters

In this personalized character trait activity, your students will create a poster of themselves and label it with a bunch of different character traits. Descriptive, interesting characters are what make a story captivating, so this is a great introduction to understanding characters and their physical as well as personality traits! This is an activity that’s sure to help them build a strong foundation for their creative writing skills to build from!

Learn More: Life In First Grade

How to Use Creative Writing Prompts in Your Classroom: A Guide for Literature Teachers

Creative writing prompts are short sentences, questions, or scenarios that inspire you to write something. They can be used for various purposes, such as practicing your writing skills, expressing your thoughts and feelings, or exploring different genres and topics in literature. Creative writing prompts are also a great tool for literature teachers who want to spice up their classroom activities and engage their students in meaningful and enjoyable writing tasks. In this blog post, I will share with you some tips on how to use creative writing prompts in your classroom, and how they can benefit your students’ learning and development.

Why Use Creative Writing Prompts?

Creative writing prompts have many advantages for both teachers and students. Here are some of the benefits of using creative writing prompts in your classroom:

They spark your students’ imagination and curiosity. Creative writing prompts can help your students to break free from the boredom and routine of academic writing, and to unleash their creativity and originality. They can also help your students to discover new ideas, perspectives, and possibilities in their writing.
They improve your students’ writing skills and confidence. Creative writing prompts can help your students to practice various aspects of writing, such as grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, structure, coherence, etc. They can also help your students to develop their voice, style, and tone in their writing. By writing regularly and receiving feedback, your students can improve their writing proficiency and self-esteem.
They enhance your students’ critical thinking and communication skills. Creative writing prompts can help your students to think critically and creatively about different topics, issues, and situations. They can also help your students to express their opinions, arguments, emotions, and stories in a clear and effective way. By writing for different purposes and audiences, your students can improve their communication competence and awareness.
They enrich your literature curriculum and connections. Creative writing prompts can help you to introduce or review literary concepts, such as plot, character, setting, theme, point of view, etc. They can also help you to connect your students’ writing to other texts, genres, or authors that you are studying. By using creative writing prompts, you can make your literature lessons more relevant, engaging, and fun for your students.

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How to Choose Creative Writing Prompts?

There are many sources of creative writing prompts that you can use in your classroom. You can find them online, in books, magazines, newspapers, or even in everyday objects or situations. You can also create your own prompts based on the texts you are studying, the current events, or your students’ interests. However, not all prompts are suitable for all students or occasions. When choosing creative writing prompts for your classroom, you should consider the following factors:

Relevance: The prompts should be related to the objectives and topics of your literature curriculum. They should also be appropriate for the level and age of your students.
Engagement: The prompts should be interesting and appealing for your students. They should also be challenging enough to stimulate their thinking and creativity.
Diversity: The prompts should cover a variety of genres, themes, and formats. They should also allow for different responses and interpretations from your students.

Here are some examples of creative writing prompts that you can use or adapt for your literature classroom:

Write a letter to a character from a book you have read.
Rewrite the ending of a story you have read.
Write a poem about a place you have visited or want to visit.
Write a dialogue between two characters from different books or genres.
Write a diary entry from the perspective of a historical figure or a fictional character.
Write a short story based on a picture or a word.
Write a review of a book you have read or a movie you have watched.
Write a haiku about a season or an emotion.

How to Use Creative Writing Prompts?

Once you have chosen or created some creative writing prompts for your classroom, you need to decide how to use them effectively. Here are some tips on how to use creative writing prompts in your classroom:

Give your students some guidelines and expectations for their writing. For example, you can specify the length (e.g., one paragraph, one page), the format (e.g., letter, essay), the audience (e.g., yourself, a friend), the tone (e.g., formal, informal), and the purpose (e.g., inform, persuade) of their writing. You can also provide them with some examples of good writing or feedback criteria.
Encourage your students to be creative, original, and expressive. Remind them that there is no right or wrong answer to a prompt, and that they can use their imagination and personal voice. You can also encourage them to experiment with different styles, techniques, and perspectives in their writing.
Provide your students with opportunities to share and discuss their writing. You can create a class blog, a bulletin board, or a newsletter where you can showcase your students’ work. You can also organize peer review sessions, writing circles, or presentations where your students can give and receive feedback, praise, and suggestions.
Use the prompts as a springboard for further learning. You can use the prompts to introduce or review literary concepts, such as plot, character, setting, theme, point of view, etc. You can also use the prompts to connect your students’ writing to other texts, genres, or authors that you are studying.

Creative writing prompts are a fun and effective way to enhance your literature curriculum and motivate your students to write. By using creative writing prompts in your classroom, you can help your students to improve their writing skills, critical thinking skills, and communication skills. You can also help your students to explore different genres, themes, and topics in literature, and to express their creativity, originality, and personality in their writing. Try them out and see how they can transform your classroom!

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Why Creative Writing Still Has a Place in My Classroom

The earliest piece of writing I can remember producing was a story, written in phonetic spelling on small pieces of scrap paper stapled together. Mimicking as best I could a “real” picture book, I called it Yuc, Yuc, u Slug , and it was based on an experience I’d had the day before, when my best friend and I turned over a large rock and found beneath it ... a frightful slug! This must have been in late kindergarten or early 1st grade, as my writing development closely mirrored my reading development.

Throughout my childhood, I wrote many stories and poems, and in all of them, I can see the combined influence of the reading I did and my own lived experiences. The same is true for many of my students today. In an activity toward the beginning of the school year, I ask them to tell me about their reading and writing histories and often hear the fond memories they have of the early stories they’ve written. Some even bring those stories into class and reminisce about the fun they had writing them.

As students progress through school, though, it seems that their reading and writing experiences become increasingly lopsided: They continue to read works of fiction and poetry, but they must make a dramatic shift away from the imaginative writing of their childhoods toward analytical paragraphs and essays. The Common Core State Standards have compounded this effect by emphasizing analytical writing at much earlier ages, while not explicitly requiring fiction or poetry writing at any age. I know kindergarten teachers who now prompt students to answer questions about an author’s choices during story time, and creative writing is taking even more of a back seat in many language arts classrooms.

This is a mistake for many reasons, but especially if we want students to read more critically.

Imagine you’re taking a ride in the back seat of someone’s car and you’re asked to offer a critique of their driving. Now imagine you have very limited experience as a driver yourself. You might be able to describe how the ride feels to you—bumps, turns, acceleration, sudden stops—and perhaps formulate some opinion about the driver based on these feelings. But you wouldn’t be able to analyze what the driver is doing (or not doing) to create the effect you feel as a passenger. When the driver shifts into low gear to go up a hill in the rain, for example, you probably wouldn’t notice—and even if you did, you’d find it difficult to understand why this was an effective choice without having experience with the particular problem the driver is addressing.

When we ask students to be critics of literary works without giving them consistent, relevant experience writing literary pieces themselves, we put students at a similarly awkward disadvantage.

Rewriting the Script

Literary analysis is something kids can do in a meaningful way under the right conditions. Authentic reading of whole novels and other texts is one condition I advocate strongly. Increasingly, I’ve come to believe that another essential condition for students to analyze and critique writers’ moves is the chance to be in the driver’s seat as literary artists themselves.

Here is one example of how students’ fiction writing propels critical thinking in my classroom:

It was March, and my 8th grade students had finished reading My Heartbeat , a young-adult novel by Garret Freymann-Weyr. While half the class discussed the book, I had the other half work independently on a creative-writing assignment: They had to put themselves in the role of author and write one scene in which they alter an element of the novel. The choices included adding a character, shifting the point of view, changing the setting, giving a “boring” scene “a makeover,” or—the most popular option—killing a character. The creative but focused nature of the task easily captured everyone’s interest, and students of all levels dug in with excitement.

After several days, we came together as a whole class to share the writing. I asked students to read aloud from their writing without introduction or explanation and I asked listeners to take some notes on each reading. The prompts for ensuing discussion were:

1. Based on what you heard, what did the student choose to do differently from the original author?

2. What literary techniques or elements stand out to you in this piece?

We brainstormed and recorded a menu of techniques as a starting place for discussing the second question, including things like dialogue, descriptive language, interior monologue, and foreshadowing. Some we had practiced in previous fiction-writing assignments; others we only discussed as readers. We added to the menu throughout the readings.

The scenes were a lot of fun to hear. Every student approached the assignment differently, and the concept of the role of the “author” was suddenly very tangible for everyone. It’s often challenging for students to remember there is a real person with a real life behind a novel or any text, using his or her imagination and making decisions. Reading fiction is such a powerful virtual experience that kids tend to interact with it as if it were an extension of their own lives, rather than the creative production of a stranger. For young children, the distinction isn’t very important: A story should simply be enjoyed! But as we help students become critics, that distinction becomes essential. In this case, the authors were simply the classmates sitting right in front of us.

Literary Devices

When students share their writing like this, endless opportunities arise to discuss the choices of each writer and their impact. Jonathon, for example, changed the contemporary setting of the novel to 1894. In the novel, the narrator’s brother, Link, is struggling to come to terms with his sexual orientation. Here is an excerpt from Jonathon’s scene:

“I’m not gay,” Link said. “James is.” My heart dropped. I suddenly began to fear for James’ life. The year was 1894. Any openly gay person could be killed by angry mobs. Being gay was not only a sexuality, but also an open bounty on your head for anyone to take. I now realized why Link wanted to deny it. …

In addition to the obvious change in setting, several students also noticed a shift in the conflict. “The conflict got bigger, because of the time period,” one student observed. This created a perfect opportunity for students to see how different literary elements affect one another. The common-core standards in English/language arts emphasize this concept. In fact, 7th grade reading-standard RL.7.3 asks students to “analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).” In this case, creative writing created an obvious springboard for students’ understanding of that standard.

As more students shared, we heard a number of carefully foreshadowed tragic deaths of various characters. The chance to share and discuss raises students’ awareness of how these literary concepts work and helps them name their own techniques. Many students didn’t realize they effectively used foreshadowing until their writing was discussed.

In her scene, Soraya took the point of view of the unpopular, overbearing father character. In the book, the father makes it clear he wants a heterosexual son, but we only hear his voice through dialogue told by Ellen, the first-person narrator. But Soraya explored his emotions and internal conflict: I see Link asleep on the couch. His eyes have dark circles under them, and I begin to wonder if it’s because of me. I begin to wonder if his stress was always caused by me. ... she wrote.

In the group, students noted the strong interior monologue in Soraya’s scene. Then someone said, “It’s like she made a whole character out of the father.” I added “character development” and “complex character” to the menu of writing techniques, words we had used before but that hadn’t made it onto our earlier brainstorm.

“Why isn’t the father a ‘whole’ or complex character in the book?” I asked. “Because Ellen is the narrator, so you really can’t know what the father is thinking,” a student answered. “So, given that, what could an author do to write a book that has several whole or complex characters?” I asked. “You could switch off narrators,” one student suggested. “Like in Wonder ,” another added, referring to a popular young-adult novel that features multicharacter narration. “Or you could write in third person,” another student offered.

Once again, our experimentation with writing fictional narratives created opportunity for students to see how authors’ choices around narration and point of view affect the story and the reader’s experience.

The Art of Storytelling

Another interesting moment came when Lana allowed a classmate to read her scene. It was quite intense; every word in the piece seemed carefully thought out. It began with Link studying with excruciating focus for a math test. Then she wrote:

“I stood up, ready to go to James’ house, when Link’s head fell loudly onto the table.

“Link!” I yelled, running to him. White bubbles foamed out of his mouth, and tears trickled down his face, mixing with sweat from earlier. His body was shaking aggressively. Link’s eyes began to roll back into the inside of his head, when I hurried to pick up my phone. I dialed 9-1-1, and the ambulance soon arrived.

As we listened, I caught Lana scanning the faces in the room with a look that was difficult to read. The scene continued as we followed characters to the hospital. Then, in the same serious tone, we found out that Link has a tumor in his brain. At that point, James, his best friend, started coughing uncontrollably and admitted he has cancer. There were some gasps from the class. Lana’s face cracked a slight smile. The situation got more and more extreme, and several students let out laughs, but Lana’s narrator never broke character.

When we discussed the scene, students immediately remarked on her descriptive language. “I notice that some people laughed. Did Lana use humor?” I asked. Students were quiet, and I imagine they were unsure as to whether their laughs were appropriate.

“Not exactly, but it was still funny at times,” someone said. I probed. “Lana, did you expect people to find your scene funny?” “Yeah, kind of,” she said, with a mischievous smile. “It was tragic, but …” another student said, trailing off. “There was something not completely serious about it, right?” I offered. We discussed tone, and I ended up introducing the term “satire” to describe the effect of Lana’s scene. In a way, after hearing more than a few tragic death scenes of characters by other students, Lana seemed to be satirizing us!

Students rarely get to experience such an immediate interaction between author and audience through text. From “the driver’s seat,” and as members of a learning community, students can gain awareness of their own intentions as they write stories and become more keen analysts of authors’ intentions. They get to encounter, firsthand, the problems authors encounter in crafting stories and they discover and play with literary techniques to solve these problems. The lessons, both explicit and implicit, are powerful.

Like the driving critic who lacks driving experience, students without genuine experiences creating literary art and reflecting on the process can easily be left to look to the teacher for “answers” as to what the author is up to in his or her use of literary techniques. That causes frustration, as it diminishes students’ ability to activate their own critical thinking in this area.

There are clear arguments for the social-emotional value of empowering students to write creatively. And anecdotally speaking, I’ve found engagement is extremely high and classroom management is a breeze when students get to write stories. But I’m convinced that fiction writing is a much more important component of a rigorous English education than is commonly believed. Imaginative writing contributes not only to the development of many “soft skills” like empathy and community, but also to the hard skill of literary analysis.

Coverage of the implementation of college- and career-ready standards and the use of personalized learning is supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

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Teaching creative writing to kids can be one of the most rewarding parts of teaching the English curriculum. But with so many statutory requirements to hit in a portfolio of writing, it can be difficult to capture truly creative writing as well as instil enthusiasm for the art.

Some of your class will really enjoy creative writing from scratch. For others, this will be a daunting experience. We have gathered together a collection of simple ideas for teaching creative writing to help your pupils smash writing tasks.

Creative writing tips for teachers

Use a workshop-style environment
Show your class how it’s done
Draw up a storyboard
Encourage book reading
Re-write a known story
Show, don’t tell
Inspire them with video
Deconstruct characters
Give your pupils freedom
Use story-starters and prompts
Elaborate with a story generator
Get the children to take creative writing home

1. Use a workshop-style environment

Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on. Some may look to write fiction pieces and use ideas around storytelling. Another group could focus on word games, spelling and puzzle-solving. There could even just be a group for reading stories and learning the craft!

All children are able to work in groups, but each pupil will have one-to-one time with you too. As long as assignments and tasks are rotated, children will find their favourite part and be more engaged as a result. Working this way can also lead to competitions and collaborative creative writing work.

2. Show your class how it’s done

The adage is ‘practise what you preach’. When it comes to creative writing, this means you should be showing the class what the process is.

Doing live creative writing sessions for your class can give them perspective on how to build a story effectively. More importantly, it gives them chance to see how it’s OK to make mistakes, how to take criticism and that they shouldn’t be afraid to create whatever they feel they want to. You could even get your more able (and confident!) pupils to live write on the board for the class to gather inspiration from; pupil modelling can be a really fantastic assessment for learning activity.

3. Draw up a storyboard

Some visual cues might be the key to unlocking greater creativity in your pupils. Instead of writing out a story, why not begin with a storyboard? It doesn’t need to be a work of art – simple stick people will do the job.

Once you’ve drawn out the basis of your story, you can then start to write down more detail to really flesh out their story.

4. Encourage book reading

If there is one place anyone can go to experience good storytelling, it’s in books. Reading brings a whole host of benefits to children form an educational standpoint – many of which apply to creative writing.

To increase vocabulary, improve creativity and enflame imaginations (plus a whole lot more), we should always be looking for more reading opportunities for pupils in class. Beyond the classroom, encourage them to do as much reading as possible at home too.

5. Re-write a known story

If you’re struggling for ideas, why not take inspiration from one of the countless legendary stories already out there. Give a classic story a twist and ask the class to elaborate on it:

Three Billy Goats Gruff are the ones under the bridge, and you’re trying to cross it
At the top of Jack’s Beanstalk is Mars
Aladdin rubs his lamp, but what are his three wishes?
The three bears are the ones sneaking into Goldilocks’ house

6. Show, don’t tell

It’s a tenant of good storytelling across many different mediums. The idea of show, don’t tell means the writer should avoid explaining every aspect of what a character is feeling or thinking and instead focus on different ways of revealing that information in the story.

For example, give your class some basic information like “the boy was sad”, and ask to write a sentence that would display that information more creatively. It could become, “the boy’s heart sank, his head bowed and he sniffled as the tears began to fall.”

This way, the reader is able to unravel the emotions involved in the story themselves, rather than being told.

7. Inspire them with video

YouTube is a treasure trove of learning resources and other helpful content that can boost a pupil’s creative writing capability. With a quick search, you’ll find plenty of interviews with famed writers sharing their experiences in the job.

Use these to dig a little deeper into the mind of a writer. What is there process for coming up with ideas? What are the challenges they face? This type of content can provide key takeaways that pupils can bring into their next creative writing task.

8. Deconstruct characters

A simple but effective method for getting into the routine of character building involves writing down what makes them tick. Take a famous character from a book or a famous children’s TV show. Split a piece of paper into a grid, and label them with things like “what makes them happy”, “what makes them angry” “How would they react in a certain situation?”

Then as a class fill out the grid. You could use them method when a pupil comes up with a new character for their story, helping them to get in the correct mindsight for creating characters.

9. Give your pupils freedom

There will be a lot of children in your class who thrive when given the freedom to write. Always remember to set aside time for your pupils to have an open-ended opportunity to write, allowing them to express their favourite topics. If it’s too open for some children, then proposing a particular topic for this time can help too.

10. Use story-starters and prompts

Story-starters or prompts are great for getting the creative juices flowing. It helps pupils to avoid the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. We’ve got a whole load of story starters for KS1 and KS2 creative writers, but here are just a few to get the juices flowing:

It was there and then it was gone! As quick as a flash…
This was it! I now had the power to change anything.
A million pounds sat there in the suitcase. “What should we do with it?” I said.
The three friends set out on their journey, with nothing but each other to help them for what lied ahead.
The car lurched down the road when suddenly a thud came from below.
The tap on my shoulder woke me. “Shhh” she said with a finger pressed to her lips. “Follow me.”

11. Elaborate with a story generator

Generate ideas and get a story rolling with a tried and tested method: the story generator. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

Find three bags
Create three lists: one for characters (a footballer, a dog, an astronaut etc), one for scenes (an unknown planet, a bedroom, a park etc) and one for the situation (looking for a lost coin, meets a talking dog, during a big thunderstorm etc)
Cut out each of the ideas and group them together in the bags. You have three bags filled with dozens of possibilities for different stories.
Ask a pupil to reach into each bag so they then have a character, a scene and a situation. This is the basis of their story.

12. Get the children to take creative writing home

The home environment will be a more comfortable or possibly, a more inspiring place for children to write their stories. Encouraging parents to get onside with this can sometimes be a battle, but one worth fighting. Sharing their stories and creations across different audiences is a valuable experience for children, whether that be in class, at home or safely online. The perfect flipped classroom experience!

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CSWIM Resources for Students

Fall id1 "doing college" workshop series.

In the fall, the Center for Speaking, Writing, and the Image (the CSWIM, Pomona's writing center) offers an acclaimed series of interactive workshops led by a cohort of current Pomona sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The series is practical, hands-on, informal, and designed to level the playing field by supporting first-years as they navigate the transition from high school to the varied rhetorical contexts of college, from speaking to writing to working with data and visual rhetoric.

All students are welcome (you don't need to be a first-year or a Pomona student--visitors from the other 5Cs are invited as well!) to join us to talk about how classes are going and learn strategies for adjusting to the many new kinds of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and research that you're being asked to do in college.

What will the workshops be about?

The topics below are planned for the Fall 2024 workshop series and have been developed based on feedback from past students about what they found most challenging in their first year of college. We are also open to requests from faculty or students for additional topics that they would find helpful. Reach out to [email protected] or stop by to talk about your ideas and collaborate with us to develop a plan for in-class sessions or other workshops available to the broader Pomona community. This series is offered every fall, and we regularly update the topics covered to respond to student needs.

To stay up-to-date about these and other special events sponsored by the CSWIM and Pomona's Writing Program , follow @ CSWIMstagram .

Topics and Dates

Each workshop topic will typically be offered three times during the week it occurs. Choose from:

Wednesdays at 6 pm (or occasionally 5:30 where indicated) in the Frank Dining Hall Blue Room (except where otherwise noted--occasionally, this session will take place in the Frank South Private Dining Room)
Fridays at 2 pm (on Thurs. @ 4:30 the week before Fall Break) in the CSWIM (special snacks and drinks provided)
Sundays at 5 pm in the CSWIM (with pizza!)

Certain sections of ID1 will also host some of the workshops during class time. Speak with your professor to see if they will be happening during your class meeting hours!

How am I supposed to do all this reading?? (Sept 11-13)

Wednesday, September 11 @ 6 pm in the Frank Blue Room
or Friday, September 13 @ 2 pm in the CSWIM (no Sunday meeting will be held for this topic)

Finding your voice in fast-moving class discussions (Sept. 15-20)

Sunday, September 15 @ 11 am in the CSWIM
Wednesday, September 18 @ 6 pm in the Frank Dining Hall South Private Dining Room (signs will be posted to help direct you to this room)
Friday, September 20 @ 2 pm in the CSWIM

Reading like a writer: moves that authors make in academic writing (Oct. 2 - Oct. 6)

Noticing the moves that authors make in academic texts and trying them out in your own writing!

Wednesday, October 2, 5:30-7 pm in the Frank Dining Hall South Private Dining Room (signs will be posted to help you find the room)
Friday, October 4, 2-3:30 pm in the CSWIM
or Sunday, October 6, 11 am-12:30 pm @ 11 am in the CSWIM

See workshop description ("The Mystery of a Murderous Despot") and details below under Afterparties Orientation Book Tie-In events.

Getting started and narrowing from a topic to a compelling, researchable question (Oct. 23-27)

Wednesday, October 23 @ 6 pm in the Frank Dining Hall Blue Room
Friday, October 25 @ 2 pm in the CSWIM
or Sunday, October 27 @ 5 pm in the CSWIM (with pizza!)

Demystifying citations: Learn to use the Zotero citation manager (Oct. 30-Nov. 3)

Come learn to use the powerful citation management tool Zotero--a free resource that will help you save, organize, and cite your sources for all your research projects in college. It's worlds better than EasyBib!

Wednesday, October 30 @ 6 pm in the Frank Dining Hall Blue Room
Friday, November 1 @ 2 pm in the CSWIM
or Sunday, November 3 @ 5 pm in the CSWIM (with pizza!)

Motivating your writing to connect with real audiences (Nov. 6-10)

Wednesday, November 6 @ 6 pm in the Frank Dining Hall Blue Room
Friday, November 8 @ 2 pm in the CSWIM
or Sunday, November 10 @ 5 pm in the CSWIM (with pizza!)

ID1 Write-in! Friday, November 15 (noon to midnight). Join fellow first-years to work on those final projects in community! The CSWIM will be open from noon till midnight with pizza, snacks, coffee, and activities to help you de-stress. Workshop Cohort Partners will be on hand to talk about your writing or other projects, but you're also welcome just to stop by, hang out, and write with friends.

Follow CSWIMstagram for updates about this ID1 Workshop Series, orientation book tie-in events , and other workshops and special events this academic year. For every event you attend this fall, you can get a stamp on the Fall 2024 CSWIM Special Events map and win an entry in a raffle for prizes from 2 Disneyland tickets to local eatery gift cards to Cambodian art prints, Zip Car credits, CSWIM swag, and more! The drawing will be held at the Long Night Against Procrastination Write-in on Sunday, November 24, 2024.

"Afterparties" Orientation Book Tie-in Events

Wednesday, september 25, 4:30 pm in the rose hills theater, panel discussion "on the afterlife of genocide: a community conversation on race, sexuality, migration, and survival in afterparties ." .

Join us for an insightful discussion over coffee and donuts on the lived experiences of the current generation of Cambodian Americans. Featuring an array of Asian-America scholars, community organizers, and educators, this panel draws on Anthony Veasna So's groundbreaking text, Afterparties , to explore issues of race, sexuality, migration, and modern violence. The dialogue will consider how stories and narratives across Cambodian America resonate with current events facing Asian Americans, as well as other marginalized peoples. By incorporating themes of generational trauma and cultural identity, this conversation aims to deepen our understanding of the complex realities faced by not only Cambodian communities in the United States, but all of us who are reckoning with the past, present, and future of genocide.

Wednesday, October 2, Friday, October 4, or Sunday, October 6

Reading and writing workshop: the mystery of a murderous despot.

As a part of the ID1 "Doing College" Workshop Series, Interim Director of College Writing, Jenny Thomas, will lead a 90-minute interactive session entitled "Reading Like a Writer: Noticing the Moves Scholars Make in Academic Writing."

Workshop overview:

Cambodia's Pol Pot led the infamous Khmer Rouge party in the 1970s and was responsible for the deaths of a staggering nearly 25% of Cambodia's population from malnutrition, disease, or politically motivated murder between 1975 and 1979. Participants in this workshop will explore the brief introductory chapter to Professor David Chandler's historical/political biography of this dictator, Brother Number One , examining the text as an example of scholarly writing within the fields of history and political science.

Chandler asks and workshop attendees will consider together:

"Who was Pol Pot?"
"What did he and his colleagues have in mind?"
"What were the sources of the revolution and its extraordinary violence?"
and perhaps the most puzzling mystery: Why, when interviewing people who knew this man--one of the most violent dictators in human history--was it so difficult to find anyone who would speak ill of him?

Writing about his encounters with individuals who had known Pol Pot in his childhood, during his years as a student and later school teacher, and even during his deadly political career, Chandler notes:

None of the people I spoke to--including several who live thousands of miles from Cambodia and whose families were savaged by the Pol Pot regime--were prepared to associate the person they had known with the horrors of the 1970s. Victins of Pol Pot's regime, they were unwilling to alter or deny their relatively pleasant recollections of the man. To his brother and sister-in-law, for example, Saloth Sar [Pol Pot'] was a sweet-tempered, equable child....Among his students and his colleagues in the clandestine Communist movement... a man who met him in the late 1950s, for example, said, 'I saw immediately that I could become his friend for life.' Similar testimony has emerged in confessions from S-21 [a Khmer Rouge torture facility].. and Red Khmer defectors.... None of the defectors, although they were free to do so (as those being tortured at S-21 were not), singled out Pol Pot's behavior or personality as a reason for...deserting the Communist movement. Instead, most of them came away with memories of a man they regarded almost as a saint.

Focusing on these unnerving and deeply thought-provoking questions, we'll explore the "moves" this text makes as a piece of scholarly writing, considering what it can teach us about reading strategies and discovering how we can use our reading in college to hone our academic writing skills and strategies.

The workshop will be offered three times, and all attendees will receive an entry in the CSWIM Fall 2024 special events raffle or prizes ranging from 2 Disneyland tickets to restaurant and movie gift cards, Zip Car rental credits, beautiful Cambodian art prints, CSWIM swag and more (drawing at the Long Night Against Procrastination write-in on Sunday, November 24.)

Wednesday, October 2, 5:30-7 pm in the Frank Dining Hall Blue Room (with special guest, Professor April Mayes from the History department)
Friday, October 4, 2-3:30 pm in the CSWIM (with snacks)
OR Sunday, October 6, 11 am in the CSWIM (brunch served: waffles, bagels, fruit, juice, coffee, and tea)

RSVPs are appreciated but not required.

Friday, October 18, 1-3 pm in the CSWIM (SCC 148)

Generative creative writing workshop with local author, neelanjana banerjee.

Limited to 16 participants: reserve your spot here !

In this 2-hour creative writing workshop, we'll use stories from Anthony Veasna So's Afterparties as inspiration for our own writing. Along with So's incredible characterizations of the experience of inheriting the trauma of genocide, we'll investigate his brilliant use of POV ("Three Women of Chuck Donuts" and "Superking Son Scores Again") and explore writing about ritual, superstition, and celebration ("Maly, Maly, Maly", "The Monks", and "We Would Have Been Princes!").

Facilitator:

Neelanjana Banerjee is a writer whose work appears in journals like Prairie Schooner, Weird Sister, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She is a co-editor of Indivisible and The Coiled Serpent. With an MFA from San Francisco State and a BA from Oberlin, Banerjee has been a resident at Hedgebrook and received scholarships to attend writing workshops. Her journalism has appeared in Teen Vogue and other publications. Based in Los Angeles, she is the Managing Editor of Kaya Press and teaches writing at UCLA.

Not only limited to fiction, this workshop is designed to be generative across genres (poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction). The workshop is limited to 16 participants. Reserve your spot or join the waiting list .

Afterparties Tie-in Film Series

More details coming soon!

" Donut King " documentary and donut party: Tuesday, October 22nd in Rose Hills Theater.

"An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and luck, built a multi-million dollar donut empire up and down the West Coast. A story of immigration, assimilation, prejudice, and who gets access to the American Dream—and what happens when you achieve it— The Donut King is also about how the American Dream gets handed down and evolves from one generation to the next: the film includes the current generation of Cambodian donut shop owners and the ways they have been inspired by and diverged from their parents and grandparents before them." ~ PBS Independent Lens

" Nang Nak " Thai film screening--one of the most popular Asian horror films of all time! Friday, November 1st in the CSWIM.

"One of Thailand's most infamous ghost stories, the allegedly true story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong is a favorite among Thai people who gather from all over at a popular shrine dedicated to her near where she lived. Although film adaptations have been sparse, it still remains to be said that the most celebrated version is the 1999 masterpiece directed by celebrated Thai auteur Nonzee Nimibutr ." ~ Asian Movie Pulse review

" The Killing Fields " an award-winning drama about the Cambodian genocide: Tuesday, November 19th in Rose Hills Theater. Two courageous journalists--one American and one Khmer--attempt to document the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge for the world to become aware.

" I Told Sunset About You " a poignant Thai miniseries and queer coming-of-age story, jointly presented by the CSWIM, Orientation Book Committee, and the Queer Resource Center.

Screenings will take place in the QRC. Dates and times to be announced soon.

General Types of Support We Provide

The CSWIM helps students take their writing, oral communication, and visual projects to the next level. We provide free one-on-one consultations with Writing, Speaking, and Image Partners : fellow Pomona students who are trained to help their peers find their voice, develop ideas, unpack assignment guidelines, navigate different genres, and work on projects at any stage of development, from brainstorming to polishing a final draft.

Scheduled appointments online and in person, 7 days a week.
Drop-in consultations. In-person, typically Sunday-Thursday 8-10 pm. (Drop-in times are marked on our scheduler. )
Attached Writing, Speaking, and Image Partners, who collaborate with faculty to provide one-on-one support for students in a specific course.
Regular (weekly or twice-monthly) meetings with Writing, Speaking, or Image Partners to help you develop your communication skills and strategies over time.

Our Partners can help you:

If you have never been to the CSWIM, begin by registering an account with our online scheduler .

Make sense of an assignment
Develop your ideas, thesis, or argument
Reflect on or writing or preparation process and try out new strategies
Organize and structure your writing, oral communication, or visual projects
Refine introductions, conclusions, transitions, and body paragraphs
Design more effective sentences, think about sentence-level language choices, and become more attuned to your own style
Identify the places in your writing or other projects where you can clarify your message so that it communicates effectively with your intended audience

You can bring us:

Written and oral assignments for any course, including lab reports and presentations
Professional writing , including personal statements, fellowship, job, and grad school applications, and cover letters
Papers in other languages, creative writing, STEM writing, senior thesis, and other projects. Look for the "Limit to" menu at the top of the scheduler to find appointments with Partners by these and other specific focus areas.

We are located in Smith Campus Center , Suite 148, across from the Living Room and next to Edmunds Ballroom on the ground floor. Contact us at [email protected] .

Mailing Address

Pomona College 333 N. College Way Claremont , CA 91711

Get in touch

Give back to pomona.

Part of The Claremont Colleges

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How to Incorporate Creative Writing in the Classroom
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Teaching Creative Writing: Tips for Your High School Class

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COMMENTS

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing
Whether you're teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art. The 3 Roles of a Creative Writing Teacher. Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher's role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity, nurturing talent, and providing constructive criticism ...
How to Teach Creative Writing
While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of "no idea." ... and then discussing potential "answers" to these questions as a class. The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don't rush this step! 5. Warm-up for writing.
6 Creative Lessons to Inspire Secondary Writers
CREATIVE WRITING. Teaching a creative writing unit or class? In this post, Language Arts Classroom writes about THREE creative writing assignments you can use with students; how-to articles, children's books, and movie scripts. And! Help students organize their writing with a creative angle: cookies!
How to Teach Creative Writing to High School Students
Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #1: Decide on Your Standards or Goals. Your school or district may have a mandated syllabus or curriculum. Mine did not. Whether you're given student goals or have to create them, you must have an overall vision for what your Creative Writing class will accomplish.
How to Teach Creative Writing (with Pictures)
While creative writing is an exercise in expressing individual creativity through writing, the trick to great creative writing is to make it truly compelling and engaging for the reader. The more engaging the story, the more creative the work will be as a whole. Explain how your students, as writers, can appeal to the humanity of their readers.
Teaching Creative Writing: Tips for Your High School Class
Teaching Creative Writing Tip #3: Make Sure Your Materials are Age-Appropriate. Once you know what you're teaching, you can begin to cultivate the actual lessons you'll present. If you pick up a book on teaching creative writing or do a quick Google search, you'll see tons of creative writing resources out there for young children. You ...
8 Tips for Getting Started With Creative Writing
Outside the world of business writing and hard journalism lies an entire realm of creative writing. Whether you're brand-new to the craft, a nonfiction writer looking to experiment, or a casual creative writer wanting to turn into a published author, honing your creative writing skills is key to your success.
Creative Writing Skills: 6 Lessons You Need To Teach Today
These are some skills that I think are essential for any Creative Writing class. There's no one right way to teach any of these skills, and teaching from multiple angles is best. Whenever possible, I like to make my Creative Writing lessons hands-on. Even the most die-hard students get sick of writing every minute of every class.
How to Incorporate Creative Writing in the Classroom
Also, with the experience of free writing, their writing in other essays and assignments will improve due to this increase in confidence. 2. Give your students creative prompts. Creative prompts will allow students to begin their creative writing journey with a little bit of help. Prompts can also be fun and be engaging in the classroom.
Anna Brekken: Creative Writing for the Classroom
Creative writing. It's powerful… but it's not what we're taught in the classroom. In this talk, Anna explains how language arts teachers can prepare their students for The Real World. She shares 3 techniques anyone can use to sprinkle personality into their writing. You'll also hear the story of a modern one-room schoolhouse that ...
How to Boost Creativity and Improve Your Creative Writing
A creative writer strives to tell unique stories in a distinctive voice. Yet with all the fiction writing already out there in the world, it can be hard to feel that your work is legitimately creative compared to the competition. You could be a first-time writer completing in a high school creative writing course, a hobbyist working on your first novel, or a seasoned pro with an MFA who's ...
Teach Creative Writing In High School With 10 Fun Activities
Creative writing is a meaningful aspect of literature that mandates you to utilize your expertise, ingenuity, and story to depict a critical message, emotion, or plot. It defies the traditional bounds of other forms of writing and is completely subjective to our preferences and experiences. In creative writing, it's all about imaginativeness! Using creative imagination ... <a title="Teach ...
Creativity and Innovation in the Writing Classroom
"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." —Maya Angelou. Creativity is fundamental to the teaching of writing. Although WR 153 focuses specifically on creativity and innovation, all WR courses ask students to approach their reading, viewing, writing, and research in creative ways. One important approach to creativity is "design thinking," which emphasizes ...
Inspire Thoughtful Creative Writing Through Art
Using this three-step process of observe, interpret, and create helps kids generate ideas, organize thoughts, and communicate effectively. Step 1: Observe. Asking students to look carefully and observe the image is fundamental to deep, thoughtful writing. Keep this in mind when choosing art to use in class. Look for images with:
How to Teach Creative Writing
How to Teach Creative Writing. All writing is (or at least should be) creative. However, if you are teaching a specific creative writing class, here are some tips to keep it moving: Plan your outcomes. Build your lessons. Create a feedback loop. Foster a writing community. Let's look at each of these in more detail: Plan Your Outcomes
Creative Writing Activities To Help Students Tell 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.
51 Creative Writing Activities For The Classroom: Comics, Prompts
You can snag some foam dice at the dollar store and hot glue questions on each side to spark some creative writing ideas for your class. Learn More: A Love 4 Teaching. 28. Balderdash ... Creative writing worksheets are a simple, minimal-prep tool to use in your creative writing units. Print out a variety of options, and have your kids practice ...
How to Use Creative Writing Prompts in Your Classroom: A ...
Here are some tips on how to use creative writing prompts in your classroom: Give your students some guidelines and expectations for their writing. For example, you can specify the length (e.g., one paragraph, one page), the format (e.g., letter, essay), the audience (e.g., yourself, a friend), the tone (e.g., formal, informal), and the purpose ...
Why Creative Writing Still Has a Place in My Classroom
After several days, we came together as a whole class to share the writing. I asked students to read aloud from their writing without introduction or explanation and I asked listeners to take some ...
12 ideas for teaching creative writing
Working this way can also lead to competitions and collaborative creative writing work. 2. Show your class how it's done. The adage is 'practise what you preach'. When it comes to creative writing, this means you should be showing the class what the process is.
8 Creative Writing Exercises to Strengthen Your Writing
Learning to write fiction is like training for a marathon. Before you get ready for the main event, it's good to warm up and stretch your creative muscles. Whether you're a published author of a bestselling book or a novice author writing a novel for the first time, creative exercises are great for clearing up writer's block and getting your creative juices flowing.
How to Run a Creative Writing Class
A creative writing session should always include actual writing and, if possible, the sharing of students' work (more on which later). Fitting everything in, including stating your aims for the session, doing some warm-up writing exercises, having a 10-to-15-minute writing burst and still have time at the end for people to read aloud, needs ...
Five Small Ways to Cultivate Creativity in the Classroom
Some of our most creative thinking happens when we give our brains a break. As educators, fostering curiosity and creativity in ourselves will create safe spaces that help our students do the same.
10 Best Creative Writing Courses for 2024: Craft ...
Besides being an awesome writer, Sanderson is an instructor with a very unique talent for keeping us engaged. He has also made available a full course in creative writing on YouTube, originally presented at Brigham Young University, which includes the most crucial tools for any beginner or even experienced writers.The course is comprehensive and rich in content, with great sound and video quality.
CSWIM Resources for Students
Professional writing, including personal statements, fellowship, job, and grad school applications, and cover letters; Papers in other languages, creative writing, STEM writing, senior thesis, and other projects. Look for the "Limit to" menu at the top of the scheduler to find appointments with Partners by these and other specific focus areas.