Hi Everyone!
I hope you are having a wonderful September, and you have not been affected by these awful hurricanes that seem to not want to leave the islands and the mainland alone. My thoughts are with those who have been affected by Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
My very good friend and collegue, Mrs. Jayne Traver, actually inspired this blog post. Jayne is teaching an 8th grade creative writing course for the first time this year. When Jayne first found out she was teaching this course over the summer, she called me with such excitement because she is in the middle of writing her novel, and she couldn't wait to share and inspire her kids with her skills and techniques. She was also hoping her students would be able to inspire her as well, helping her gain momentum in her novel writing while her students worked on their own projects. This was also the first time our building has ever offered an elective like this for our 8th graders, so it was really energizing.
Unfortunately, the excitement and energy soon faded when Jayne found out our 8th graders were not picked for this class, but rather "dumped" into the class as an almost bonafied study hall. Let's state the truth-a writing class is normally girl-heavy, as girls tend to like to write more than boys. Meanwhile, Jayne's classes were populated with resentful, disgruntled boys who didn't want to be in a writing class. And guess what? After the schedules were concrete, there was no changing or going back.
Soon enough, Jayne came running to me with a look on her face that screamed, HELP! She needed all the brainstorming and idea she could get to have these boys buy into her program. Hence, my subject for this post-Creative Writing Prompts that Will Get Boys Writing and Don't Suck. You have to read Jayne's blog post about her experience with her creative writing class. It will have you belly-laughing and shaking your head! Check it out here: Challenge Abound.
Teaching creative writing can be a thorn in some teachers' sides, especially creative writing and creative topics for boys. English teachers will tell you there is not an extensive amount of time to incorporate creative writing into the curriculum because there is so much imperative writing we need to cover (argument, persuasive, informative and literary writing), but when we have a chance to add it in, we do, and we want it to be engaging, right?
Unfortunately, "fun" is not always associated with writing because, well, many of the prompts out there are rather mundane, boring and cliche. Let's be honest. We want are kids to WANT to write, and the only way this is going to happen is if the teacher finds prompts the students are going to WANT to write about in their story. Remember, boys hate expressing their feelings, so the fluffy, cushy feel-good prompts do not work for the boys.
I wanted to share with you an list of amazingggg creative writing prompts I promise will get your students thinking and writing, and your boys will LOVE them.
First, one of my teacher idols, Laura Randazzo, wrote an awesome blog post of 180 writing prompts. She shares some great visual prompts that are SO engaging! Check out this picture:
This Tumblr prompts will get your students fired up for creative writing for sure!
I hope this list is helpful and will get your students writing! I use many of these prompts in my bellringers. Have a wonderful rest of September!
