Creative Writing — 6-12th- ADD ARTICLES HERE

Creative Writing Prompts That Will Spark Your Students' Imaginations (And Make Them Beg for More!)

Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank page, desperately trying to come up with a writing prompt that'll actually engage your students?

Creative WritingMeredith DobbsDecember 4, 2023creative, creative activities, creative writingComment

Writing Activities for Your Next Unit Hero Unit

Heroes and heroism have always been captivating subjects, transcending time and culture. In an English class, these themes offer an excellent opportunity to engage middle school and high school students in meaningful discussions, critical thinking, and creative expression. This blog post will provide a range of activities and lessons to inspire and educate students about heroes and heroism.

12 Super Fun Poetry Lesson Plans for Middle and High School

Here you'll find 12 engaging mini lessons to integrate teaching reading and writing poetry. Each lesson includes an objective, hook, and activity. There are lots of links to other resources too!

Creative Writing, Poetry, Writing Mini-lessonsAmanda WernerMarch 25, 2023Poetry writing, poetry, Poetry Lessons, April Poetry MonthComment

Writing Prompts for Women's History Month

Women’s History Month is a particularly exciting month to celebrate: there are so many brilliant, talented, and inspirational women to honor and that’s what this blog post is all about. The women here are women whose stories always push my students to write creatively, critically, and think about the world in a whole new way.

Writing Mini-lessons, Creative Writing, FREEBIES, HolidayAmanda CardenasJanuary 29, 2023High School ELA, creative activities, bell ringerComment

FUN with Writing!

As writing teachers, we can get so bogged down with meeting the demands of standardized testing and drilling our students on analytical writing skills that we can lose sight of the fact that writing can be FUN!

Creative Writing, Writing WorkshopMeredith DobbsDecember 8, 2022creative writing, writing workshop, choice, promptsComment

Halloween Write the Room: Spooky Season Creative Writing

Halloween is a fun time of year to lean into the high energy, sugar driven madness of our students. Here is a free download Write the Room activity that can be used in at least two different ways any time of the spooky season!

Addressing the COVID Skills Gap

It’s no secret that COVID has caused significant skills gaps in education— but also in other key industries around the world. A recent article from the popular consulting firm McKinsey & Co says, “The urgency of addressing skill gaps is clear—and, across industries, more important than ever to do. Most respondents say that skill building (more than hiring, contracting, or redeploying employees) is the best way to close those gaps and that they have doubled down on their efforts to reskill or upskill employees since the pandemic began. The results also point to a shift in the most important skills to develop, which tend to be social and emotional in nature: for example, empathy, leadership, and adaptability.”

Best Practices, Creative WritingMeredith DobbsJuly 17, 2022SEL, social, emotional, COVIDComment

3 Reasons to Use Seasonal Writing Activities

Bring the seasons into your writing classroom to engage, motivate, and grow your writers with these tips!

Writing Assignments, Creative Writingjeanine schneiderOctober 8, 2021Comment

Gothic-Inspired Creative Writing Assignments

October is one of my favorite times of year because it’s a perfect time to get into one of my favorite genres of all time— the Gothic genre.

Creative Writing, HolidayMeredith DobbsOctober 4, 2021Halloween, October, creative writing, creativeComment

How to Teach Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing does not come naturally to most of us. This is because when we tell stories orally, we often leave out the details (because we’ve forgotten them in most cases). It takes effort, bravery and a lot practice to master the art of descriptive writing. In this blog post you’ll learn three simple things you can do to get your students on the path to writing more descriptively! And no, none of these strategies involve saying to your students, “show, don’t tell”. That strategy hasn’t really worked for me and I’m assuming it hasn’t for you either...

Creative Writing, PoetryAmanda WernerSeptember 25, 2021descriptive writingComment

Writing a Manifesto: A Guide for Students

Help students express their beliefs using creative writing and mentor texts.

Creative Writing, Mentor TextsAmanda CardenasSeptember 5, 2021brainstorming, mentor text, Middle School English, High School ELAComment

FIVE Fun Writing Activities for Back to School

The beginning of the school year is such a crucial time to hook students into writing. It is also a crucial time to get them “warmed up” after the summer break. Writing not only facilitates the process of establishing effective writing habits in the classroom, but it also begins the process of developing a writing community that will become a valuable tool during writing workshop throughout the school year.

5 Poetry Activities to Heal Trauma

The entire world has been traumatized. Amidst a pandemic, many other tumultuous events have occurred. Most teachers I know are wondering how to make room for all this in their classrooms. Some may be wondering, should I just plow forward with content? Absolutely not. In this blog post you’ll find five creative poetry activities that will allow you to make space for teachers and students to write about the hardships they’ve faced during these tough times.

Creative Writing, PoetryAmanda WernerMarch 21, 2021Poetry writing, Poetry LessonsComment

Online or In School: 5 Writing Activities for B2S That Don't STINK!

We wanted to come together as a team of teachers to share some new ideas that are creative, important, and FUN for students. The goal is to hook students right at the beginning of the year so that they begin to build comfort and confidence as writers in your class.

Here are FIVE Writing Activities for B2S that Don’t Stink!

The Gingerbread House Story Project: A Brave Teacher's Guide

It’s the perfect time for a holiday writing project. Something that mixes a little magic in with the skills you want your students to be practicing anyway. Something the elf on your shelf will be able to report back to your department chair actually kept students on task right before break.

Holiday, Creative WritingGuest UserNovember 6, 2018Christmas, creative writingComment

One-Pagers as a Response to Literature

Need an engaging post-reading activity? One-pagers make for a strong assessment on their own, but they are also a great prewriting tool.

Poetry Collage: Poetry Meets Art

One of my favorite openers is to have students create a poetry collage using striking images they find in modern poets' work. I send them on an online journey through Billy Collins' beautiful project, Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools.

Creative Writing, PoetryGuest UserMarch 20, 2018poetry, creative writingComment

9 Writing Activities to use with any Shakespeare Play

In need of some engaging writing activities for your next Shakespeare unit? Look no further. Check out these nine writing options that work with any Shakespeare play.

Creative Writing, Writing AssignmentsGuest UserFebruary 20, 2018Shakespeare, writing activities, ShakespeareanComment

Empower Student Writers with a 20% Time Choice Blogging Project

If you'd like to give your students some serious choice, and empower them to write about the topics that truly interest them, blogging just might be the thing for your classroom. Set aside one day a week for your 20% time project, and introduce students to the simple free blogging platform, Blogger.

Best Practices, Creative Writing, Distance LearningGuest UserDecember 16, 2017choice, blog, blogging, creative writingComment

Thanksgiving Writing Activities for the Whole Family

Thanksgiving writing assignments to share with the family. Make memories that will last a lifetime while reinforcing important literacy skills at home.