Tag: #writing prompts

Better late than never right? So here are your writing prompts to have some fun with. Let me know if they are to easy, hard or just right. So just write!

Source: cdschools.org/

Let’s continue with this month’s writing prompts.

These prompts provide teachers a great way to add more writing time in class. Some have two suggestions, one for middle school (MS) and one for high school (HS). These can be simple writing assignments, warm-ups, or journal entries. Feel free to use these any way you wish.

Writing Prompts

May 8 – Theme: National Train Day

High-speed trains can travel fast with some prototypes with speeds over 400 mph. In theory, a high-speed train could race up the East Coast, from NYC to Miami, in seven hours. The same trip would take a car about 18.5 hours. Should Americans invest in high-speed rails for trains or in roads for cars?  Why or why not?

May 9 – Theme: Peter Pan Day

Pretend you were in J.M. Barrie’s story about Peter Pan, a boy who never grows up and remain eternally young. Which part would you most like to see or do: fly, visit with mermaids, fight the pirate Captain Hook, or meet the mischevious fairy Tinkerbell? Explain your answer.

May 10 – Theme: Civil Disobedience.

In 1994, political activist Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa’s 1st Black president. Mandela followed the example of the civil disobedience practices used by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Consider King’s statement, “Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law.”
For what injustice would you practice civil disobedience?

OR

May 10: Theme: Postcards

In 1861, the US Post Office authorized the first postcard. Postcards are usually sent from a vacation place or as a greeting card to mark an event, or even just to say “hello”.
Design a postcard and prepare a message.

May 11 – Theme: Asthma & Allergy Awareness Month

Do you have asthma or allergies? If so, what are your triggers? (What makes you have an attack or sneeze, etc.) If not, do you think that schools do enough to help those who have asthma and allergies? Why or why not?

May 12: Theme: National Limerick Day

Limericks are poems with the following scheme: five-lines of an anapestic meter (unstressed syllable, unstressed syllable, stressed syllable) with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA. For example:

“There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a Bee;
When they said, ‘Does it buzz?’
He replied, ‘Yes, it does!’
‘It’s a regular brute of a Bee!'”

Try to write a limerick.

May 13 – Theme: Mother’s Day

Write a descriptive paragraph or poem about either your Mother or someone who is a Mother figure to you.

OR

May 13 – Theme: Tulip Day

In the 17th century, tulip bulbs were so prized that traders would mortgage their houses and fields.  Describe a tulip or another flower using all five senses.

May 14 – Theme: Lewis and Clark Expedition

William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was able to create a map of the Louisiana Purchase by merely walking through and exploring it. Today Google uses cars with custom cameras over five million miles to develop their Google Maps apps. How do maps figure in your life? How might they figure in your future?

May 15 – Theme: L. F. Baum’s Birthday

 Author of the Wizard of Oz books and creator of Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Scarecrow, the Lion, the Tin Man, and the Wizard.
Which character from the world of Oz would you most like to meet? Explain your answer.

May 16 – Theme: National Bar-B-Que Month

The word barbecue comes from the Caribbean word “barbacoa.” Originally, barbacoa was not a way of cooking food, but the name of a wooden structure used by indigenous Taino Indians to smoke their food. Barbeque ranks in the top 20 most popular foods in the USA. What’s your favorite picnic food? Do you like bar-b-que, hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, or something else entirely? What makes it so special?

May 17 – Theme: Kentucky Derby

(MS) This horse race is also called “The Run for the Roses” for the draped blanket of roses placed over the winning horse. This idiom uses a rose, as do many other idioms. Choose one of the following rose idioms, or any other idiom you know, and give an example as to when it could be used:

• a bed of roses
• a rose by any other name
• bed of roses
• bloom is off the rose
• bring the roses to (one’s) cheeks
• come out smelling like a rose

(HS) Just before the race at the Kentucky Derby, the crowds sing “My Old Kentucky Home.” The revised lyrics of the original song by Stephen Foster changed the word “darkies” and substituted the word “people.” Crowds now sing:

“The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home
Tis summer, the people are gay…”

Should songs with questionable lyrics from years ago continue to be used for public events? Are there songs that are so inappropriate that they should be dropped entirely?

Source: thoughtco.com

Photo by skynesher/Getty Images

May is a beautiful month, full of flowers and sunshine. May also celebrates a week for teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. Many of the following writing prompts for each day of May are written to take advantage of this time of year.

These prompts provide teachers a great way to add more writing time in class. Some have two suggestions, one for middle school (MS) and one for high school (HS). These can be simple writing assignments, warm-ups, or journal entries. Feel free to use these any way you wish.

Writing Prompts

May 1 – Theme: May Day

(MS) May Day is a traditional celebration of Spring in countries around the globe, often including dancing and flowers around a maypole. However, May Day is rarely celebrated in the United States. Do you think that Americans should celebrate May Day? Why or why not?
(HS) In Chicago 1886, 15 people were killed during the Haymaker Riot strikes held to protest poor working conditions. In sympathy, European nations, many socialist or communist, established May Day to honor the cause of the worker. Same prompt for you.

May 2 – Theme: Holocaust Remembrance Day

Is the Holocaust too disturbing for students to learn about in middle school or even in high school? Write a persuasive paragraph explaining why it should be included in the curriculum.

May 3 -Theme: National Day of Prayer

May 3 – Theme: National Day of Prayer is usually observed on the first Thursday of May. It’s an inter-denominational event when faiths from across the country pray for the United States and its leaders. The word “pray” was first used in the early 13th century to mean “ask earnestly, beg.” What would you like to “ask earnestly, beg” for in your life?

 May 4 – Theme: Star Wars Day

The date comes from the catchphrase, “May the 4th [force] Be With You.”
Do you have an opinion about the “Star Wars” film franchise? Do you love it, hate it? Are there reasons to appreciate the series? For example, from 2015 to the present, the film series has made millions of dollars:

• “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015) over $900 million
• “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017) over $600 million
• “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016) over $500 million

May 5 – Theme: Cinco de Mayo

Many people across the United States celebrate the day, but they do not know what Cinco de Mayo commemorates. The day recognizes the Mexican Army’s victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla, in 1862. Should we know more about this holiday or other international holidays?  

May 6 – Theme: American Bike Month

(MS) 40% of Americans have a bicycle.  Do you have a bicycle?  Do you know how to ride it? What could be the advantages of riding a bicycle? What are the disadvantages of riding a bike?
(HS) Urban planners include more bike lanes to reduce car traffic. The benefits of bicycles in cities are the reduction of car emissions and the increase of exercise. Is this planning a good thing? Or is more city planning needed? Could this planning be like the idiom the says something is needed “like a fish needs a bicycle “?

May 7 – Theme: Teacher Appreciation (Week May 7-11)

What qualities do you think a great teacher must have? Explain your answer.
Do you have a favorite teacher from your school experiences? Write a letter of appreciation to that teacher.

Source: (thoughtco.com)

April is National Poetry Month

In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve curated a number of creative writing prompts to help you cultivate your own poetic ritual. Try one prompt each day for the month of April in service of building a new routine, or skip around to the poetry prompts that inspire you most. I’m committed to following my own advice and will also be writing one poem a day using the thought starters below for creative fuel. 

Creative Writing Prompts to Spark Your New Writing Practice

1. Describe your ideal day, from morning to night. Where are you, what will you do, and who will you spend your time with (if anyone at all)?
2. Write a poem about your favorite food using all the senses.
3. Write a ghost poem inspired by a song lyric or line from a book you love. That is, take the original sentence and use it as the first line of your writing. Then begin adding to it until you come back to the beginning and erase the first line that inspired all the subsequent lines — effectively making the inspiration a ghost.
4. Describe your favorite color without naming it. Or, imagine your color aura and describe that.
5. Come up with your six-word memoir. (Fun fact: did you know that a one-line poem is called a monostitch?)
6. Walk the reader through a place you can’t wait to visit again, sharing all of the sensory details that make it like paradise to you.
7. Write about your life if you lived in a different period in history. For example, you wake up and it’s 1970, what’s the first thing you’d do?
8. Confront your fears and write about what scares you most.
9. Select a piece of art and write an ekphrastic poem about it — that is, a poem that describes the work of art (sculpture, painting, drawing, performance, film, or photograph) in effusive detail.
10. If you were to host a dinner party, who would you invite, dead or alive? What meal would be served, how would the table be set, and what conversations do you imagine would take place?
11. Think of a trip or commute you’ve taken many times. Jot down your observations and memory of said journey and recreate it for the reader. Then decide what’s more important to you, the journey or the destination?
12. Find an object in your home that brings you joy and tap into why it’s so meaningful in a descriptive poem.
13. Think of someone you had a miscommunication with and explore what would happen if you said everything you wanted to say.
14. What’s your favorite month and why? Orient it in the season as part of your description.
15. Write about the emotion you experience the most and list out what situations, people, or things make you feel that way.
16. Where do you come from? Start a poem by exploring and defining your origin story.
17. Describe a recent dream of yours in vivid, fantastical detail.
18. Explore what you’d say to your 13-year-old self, or another pivotal age from when you were younger.
19. Write about what it’d be like to encounter a long-lost love, years later.
20. Manifest future you with a poem describing who you’ll be in 5 or 10 years.
21. Think of the happiest day of your life and write about what made it so magical. Can you capture that feeling in poem form?
22. What lessons have you learned from your elders and ancestors? Write about the ones that still show up for you today.
23. Think about all the cities you’ve lived in. Pick one to write about that’s had a lasting impact on your identity.
24. What’s a youthful memory of a time you were reckless or misbehaved? Write about that experience and what you may have learned.
25. Identify your alter ego, or someone totally opposite of you and write a poem from that point of view. What would they do that you would never dare?
26. What is one of life’s biggest mysteries you wish you had the answer to? See if you can come up with an answer in your poem.
27. Write a poem about a beloved character in a book, movie, or show that you adore.
28. Personify an inanimate object (such as a crystal, a postcard, or vintage scarf) and tell its story. Where all has it gone before it made its way to you?
29. Turn something mundane, like a grocery list, into a poetic writing exploration. How can a few creative adjectives and alliterative details make it shine?
30. Pick someone you’re drawn to, even a stranger on the street or in a coffee shop and write what you imagine they’re like in real life.

Article by Alison Ives for Brit+Co©