Hi Everyone!
I hope everyone is well, school is smooth, and things are well, quiet :). For many of us, things never slow down, especially if you have kids, your children's homework, sports, and all the rest. Do you believe it is 9 Fridays until Christmas?!?!?!? Every year, I say the same thing: "Where the heck does time go?!?!".
How do I deal with creative writing and the use of time?
I LOVE creative writing, and so do my students. I love creative writing to be part of my classroom. It is a time to break away from all the "musts", and let the students use their imagination and creative spirit to write.
As Halloween is upon us, and it is one of my favorite times for my students to creatively write, I wanted to write a post about how much I love creative writing and teaching my students to creatively write; however, we all run into our arch nemesis called TIME. In addition, where do you find engaging, interesting, exciting creative writing materials? I may have a few answers for you.
First, you probably wonder how do I fit creative writing into my already hectic English schedule? Let's face it. We don't have time to spend a few days on a creative writing assignment, right? Between novels, literary terms, close reading, non-fiction reading, grammar, how do I fit it in? Well, I tackle this by assigning the writing prompt as a bell ringer. As the students come into my class, they know that the bell ringer is their first task of the day, every day. Normally bell ringers consist of grammar, quotation analysis, idioms, and editing, but on the occasion, I post a prompt.
On my Smart Board, I display the prompt. On a normal day I give them a few minutes for regular bell ringers, but with the creative writing tasks, I give them anywhere from 5-10 minutes to get started. This is a decent start for them, and then I ask them to finish the creative writing at home. This way, the students are still able to enjoy the creative writing aspects of English class without breaking the clock.
I also try to do more creative assignments around holidays. Take Halloween for example. Because my school shortens the periods for the day because of our Halloween parade, this is a perfect time to lets students use their creative outlet and energy (!!!), and put it down on paper.
Awesome & Engaging Writing Prompts
Are you sick of the cliche, boring writing prompts? Want to engage your students into mind-blowing, exciting prompts? Check out these Tumblr prompts.
Tumblr Creative Writing Prompts
You can easy copy and paste these onto your Smart Board templates and enlarge them to display them on the board. Tumblr has a fabulous selection of these visual prompts, and they all have the Common Core Standards listed on the prompt! Score!
Here are two of my creative writing products that I do with my students each year. As I said, creative writing is so much fun to do around different holidays. Click on the pictures to go right to my store!
I hope you enjoyed this post, and you can some of the information to help engage your students!
Sign up for my newsletter for more information, freebies, goodies, and more!
NEWSLETTER
