Writing Prompts

Sometimes the hardest part of writing is figuring out what to write about.

Use these lists of writing prompts to find some good writing topics for your students.  Choose a prompt together -- or let the student choose.

When assigning writing, make sure to let the student know:

  • What type of product you expect: a paragraph?  A multi-paragraph essay?  A multi-page story?
  • How finished the product should be: outline or brainstorm? Rough draft?  Final draft?
  • What type of writing should the student focus on? Description? Persuasion?  Narrative?
  • What spelling/grammatical issues you will hold the student accountable for?  The best way to teach students to self-edit is to hold them accountable for their errors.  If you have been working on commas, tell the student you will hold him or her responsible for getting commas correct, or homonyms, or verb tenses, or spelling "princess" correctly -- emphasize whatever you have been working on.

When the student brings the writing back, assess it based on the criteria laid about above.  Did the student do what you asked?  How well did the student perform?

If the student makes the kinds of errors that you were holding the student accountable for, go through each paragraph and note how many of that particular kind of error there are in each paragraph.  Ask the student to find the errors.  This also helps the student learn to self-edit (rather than relying on an adult to do it).

Once you have assessed the writing on the criteria, raise the bar!

  • Find another grammatical/spelling issue to teach and begin to hold the student accountable for.
  • Push the student to the next level of writing.

What are the levels of writing?  For each aspect of writing, there are several levels.  Try to help students master them in order. Once they master one level in an area, move to the next level.  Most students will not master all levels in order.  A student who is advanced in content may struggle with punctuation!

  • Content
    • First: The writing should make sense. There should be no missing ideas. The reader should understand.  Make sure students understand that, if a reader doesn't understand, the writer needs to do better.  
    • Second: The writing should be interesting.  Specifics are more interesting than generalities.  New or different ideas are more interesting than trite ones. 
    • Third: Convincing or emotive.  The best writing either makes you think about something or feel something.  Push stronger writers toward this goal.
  • Organization
    • First: Writing should have a clear beginning, middle, and end (intro, body, and conclusion).
    • Second: Paragraphs should be self-contained but transition from one idea to another.
    • Third: Writing should be clearly organized around a central idea (thesis) and road mapped clearly (topic sentences and transitions).
  • Vocabulary
    • First: Student should use words that he/she knows and use them appropriately.
    • Second: Student should use a variety of vocabulary and make a point not to repeat the same words over and over.
    • Third: Student should actively seek to use the "best" word in context -- this may include trying out a variety of synonyms.
  • Syntax and Expression
    • First: Student should write in complete sentences and ideas.
    • Second: Student should use sentence variety and start to use descriptive words (adverbs, adjectives) and literary devices (metaphors, similes, analogies) to make writing more descriptive and interesting. 
    • Third: Student should make a point to avoid the passive voice (start sentences with actors!), should make sure that every sentence contributes to the ideas of the writing, write concisely but meaningfully.
  • Grammar
    • First: Students should learn to make verbs and pronouns agree (in terms of singular/plural and tense).  Students should correctly use adverbs/adjectives.    Students should learn to use apostrophes correctly (contractions and possessives) and distinguish between homonyms.
    • Second: Students should learn how to spot and correct run-on sentences and fragments, learn to use subject and object pronouns correctly, and be good and writing simple, compound, and complex sentences.  
    • Third: Students should learn about parallelism and should work on more confusing issues: who/whom, lie/lay, effect/affect, etc. 
  • Punctuation and Spelling
    • First: Students should be able to spell words that they use often, should capitalize proper nouns and the first word in sentences and use end punctuation.
    • Second: Students should start to be able to identify unfamiliar words that they need to check spelling on.  Students should learn basic rules for commas and how to punctuate dialogue.
    • Third: Students should know how to use all punctuation (including colons, semicolons, etc.) and should be able to make everything spelled correctly (even if they need to look words up).

Skill: