Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of Education posts the last couple of weeks. My schedule has been awesome! 🤪😉
Anywhoodle – yes, this is a made-up word, no I don’t care – I’ve put together 3 writing prompts for you all. There is one per age group. Obviously you can change them in every aspect. I tried to come up with more, but everything else just seemed to be copying everyone else’s work!
Elementary School
Pretend you’re a dog. What makes you different from every other dog? What makes you special? What do you look like?
Obviously, a lot can be done with this prompt. Here are just a few suggestions:
- Choose ANY animal; it doesn’t have to be a dog.
- Let the students choose their own animal – this does make things a little more complicated and is probably best saved for the upper elementary grades.
- Have them draw what they look like
- Have them write what they would do if they were that animal
- Have them list facts about their type of animal – add research to the project!
Middle School
If you were a mix of 3 different animals, which 3 animals would you choose and why? What would you look like?
This prompt comes in handy before doing a section on mythical creatures! And I say BEFORE because our students will get caught up in the ones that already exist. I did a similar project where students had to create their own instruments and they all got caught up trying to take what already exists and merging them together.
Some ideas:
- Have your students go into great detail on the three animals. What type of animal is the head and why did they choose it? And the legs? Are there wings?
- Once again, have your students draw their new creation and give it a name!
- Some of your students are going to be the star artists. Why not ‘commission’ them to draw the creatures for the other students? Maybe they don’t need to write the essay if they read the other students’ essays, meet with the students to discuss the design, and put the drawing together?
- More on that comment above: for your truly artistic students, I can guarantee you they will spend much more time drawing up their own new creation rather than writing about it, so why not access their potential more?
High School
Imagine you are ____ years old. Write 1-2 pages of what a normal day looks like for you?
You choose the age. 20, 25, 30? Not only is this a fun project, but it gets them thinking about their futures and putting some solid goals into place. They may not know exactly what they want to do, but if they can start imagining what a typical day in their future looks like, so much the better! And if their future has them sitting around not doing much, who are we to judge? We’re not asking them to write about the future we hope for them; we want them to start engaging their own futures!
Obviously these prompts can be changed and ignored! But as I thought back to my own time in school, these are the sorts of essays I would have enjoyed writing!
Have any great ideas? Share them in the comments below!
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