Writing Prompts (from Middle School Writing Unit)

Writing Journal Prompts

Every night, you will try your hand at one kind of creative writing or another. You can repeat prompts that you LOVE, you can skip ones you can’t get excited about.

Here are some pro-tips to make your creative writing DAZZLE:

·   Use specific verbs (“She tip-toed into the room,” not “She went into the room.”) ·   Use concrete nouns (“We ate ahi poke on white rice with shavings of dark green nori wilting into the wasabi mayonnaise,” not “We ate lunch.” ·   Avoid wimpy to-be verbs: BE, IS, AM, ARE, WERE, WAS, WOULD ·   Use sensory details (what did you see, hear, feel, taste, touch, smell? ·   POEMS DON'T NEED TO RHYME. PLEASE, SAVE US FROM RHYMED POEMS. ·   As Ms. Frizzle always says, “Take risks, make mistakes, and get messy!”

Prompts	✔
Write a letter to someone-- it can be a real person, an imaginary person, a stranger, an idea, an animal-- telling about your past (your experiences), present (your values) and your future (your goals).
Write a poem about your inner life and your outer life. You can use the lines “I seem to be…but really I am…”
Tell the story of your daily journey to school in great detail
Speak for something that cannot speak for itself
Write a poem in honor of someone—silly or serious
Write HYPERBOLE—impossible exaggeration—about all the amazing things you have done
Go outside and listen and write down everything you sense
Write a letter than can never be sent
Write a poem of secrets
Write a poem of lies and truths mixed together
Write down a dream that you have had
Write a letter to your future great great grandchildren
Write a letter FROM your great great grandchildren
Write a letter to a character in a book
Write what is secret and what is shared. “No one knows…” and “Everyone knows….”
Use OXYMORON—contradictions like “dry ocean” “cruel love”
Write riddles and puzzles.
Write a ghost story
Write what you believe and what you don’t believe
Write about something that you have mixed feelings about. For example, what is something that you love and hate at the same time?
Write a “human interest story” about a really interesting person that you know.
Write an editorial about an issue that is important to you and you want others to understand better.
Write a poem that explores how you were named and the meaning of your name. Include at least one bold lie.
Describe doing something-- your hobby, eating, waking up, sleeping-- using onomatopoeia to transport the readers to your world
Write a fable—a short story about animals that behave like humans and learn a moral.
Write a story or poem about a person you love using all of your senses except for sight.
Write a poem about your New Years Resolutions. What would happen if you kept them all year? What would happen if you broke them all right away?
Remember an embarrassing conversation. Write it down as it really happened, and then rewrite it as you WISH it had really gone. Be as clever as possible.
False apologies: Apologize for things you are not actually sorry that you did.
Retell a fairy tale from an unusual point of view. Maybe from the bad-guy’s POV, or some other observer who would see things differently than the way we usually think of the story.
Write a description of a photograph that you have, and dive in to the memories.
Write about things that you will never do.
Animal questions. Think of an interesting animal. Ask it questions about how it got that way, what it thinks, what its life is like.
Try a Haiku poem. They only use three short lines. Five, Seven and Five.
Describe one situation from a person’s point of view, and then describe it again from an animal’s point of view.
Write the things that you know. And the things that you don’t know.
Write a love letter to things you are afraid of.
Write a prayer of thanksgiving.  Be specific and creative.
If you were a writer, what poems would you write? Make a poem that lists all of your poem topics.
Write a list of Rules for life. They can be specific, like “Rules for Parents” or general, like a list of “Never….”
Write a story about a friend, putting them in situations that would make them happy.
How have you changed since you were a small child?
What do you need, and what do you want? What don’t you want that maybe you should?