creative writing teaching strategies

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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that  every  student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a  seven-step method  that will  scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process  from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

• personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
• imaginative scenarios
• prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
• lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
• fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

• What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
• What might make us question those beliefs?
• What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
• How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

• allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
• help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
• warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting  is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note:  at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

• a work in progress.

Remind them that  if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

• demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
• taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
• providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs also gives you access to an ever-expanding collection of over 3,500 online books!

2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

• use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

• Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
• Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
• Which parts am I most uncertain about?
• Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
• Are there places where I could have used a better word?
• Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to  read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note:  if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun  marking  your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on  how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for  supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Four Strategies for Effective Writing Instruction

• Share article

(This is the first post in a two-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used to teach writing?

Teaching and learning good writing can be a challenge to educators and students alike.

The topic is no stranger to this column—you can see many previous related posts at Writing Instruction .

But I don’t think any of us can get too much good instructional advice in this area.

Today, Jenny Vo, Michele Morgan, and Joy Hamm share wisdom gained from their teaching experience.

Before I turn over the column to them, though, I’d like to share my favorite tool(s).

Graphic organizers, including writing frames (which are basically more expansive sentence starters) and writing structures (which function more as guides and less as “fill-in-the-blanks”) are critical elements of my writing instruction.

You can see an example of how I incorporate them in my seven-week story-writing unit and in the adaptations I made in it for concurrent teaching.

You might also be interested in The Best Scaffolded Writing Frames For Students .

Now, to today’s guests:

‘Shared Writing’

Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 24 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas. Jenny is the president-elect of TexTESOL IV and works to advocate for all ELs:

The single most effective instructional strategy that I have used to teach writing is shared writing. Shared writing is when the teacher and students write collaboratively. In shared writing, the teacher is the primary holder of the pen, even though the process is a collaborative one. The teacher serves as the scribe, while also questioning and prompting the students.

The students engage in discussions with the teacher and their peers on what should be included in the text. Shared writing can be done with the whole class or as a small-group activity.

There are two reasons why I love using shared writing. One, it is a great opportunity for the teacher to model the structures and functions of different types of writing while also weaving in lessons on spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

It is a perfect activity to do at the beginning of the unit for a new genre. Use shared writing to introduce the students to the purpose of the genre. Model the writing process from beginning to end, taking the students from idea generation to planning to drafting to revising to publishing. As you are writing, make sure you refrain from making errors, as you want your finished product to serve as a high-quality model for the students to refer back to as they write independently.

Another reason why I love using shared writing is that it connects the writing process with oral language. As the students co-construct the writing piece with the teacher, they are orally expressing their ideas and listening to the ideas of their classmates. It gives them the opportunity to practice rehearsing what they are going to say before it is written down on paper. Shared writing gives the teacher many opportunities to encourage their quieter or more reluctant students to engage in the discussion with the types of questions the teacher asks.

Writing well is a skill that is developed over time with much practice. Shared writing allows students to engage in the writing process while observing the construction of a high-quality sample. It is a very effective instructional strategy used to teach writing.

‘Four Square’

Michele Morgan has been writing IEPs and behavior plans to help students be more successful for 17 years. She is a national-board-certified teacher, Utah Teacher Fellow with Hope Street Group, and a special education elementary new-teacher specialist with the Granite school district. Follow her @MicheleTMorgan1:

For many students, writing is the most dreaded part of the school day. Writing involves many complex processes that students have to engage in before they produce a product—they must determine what they will write about, they must organize their thoughts into a logical sequence, and they must do the actual writing, whether on a computer or by hand. Still they are not done—they must edit their writing and revise mistakes. With all of that, it’s no wonder that students struggle with writing assignments.

In my years working with elementary special education students, I have found that writing is the most difficult subject to teach. Not only do my students struggle with the writing process, but they often have the added difficulties of not knowing how to spell words and not understanding how to use punctuation correctly. That is why the single most effective strategy I use when teaching writing is the Four Square graphic organizer.

The Four Square instructional strategy was developed in 1999 by Judith S. Gould and Evan Jay Gould. When I first started teaching, a colleague allowed me to borrow the Goulds’ book about using the Four Square method, and I have used it ever since. The Four Square is a graphic organizer that students can make themselves when given a blank sheet of paper. They fold it into four squares and draw a box in the middle of the page. The genius of this instructional strategy is that it can be used by any student, in any grade level, for any writing assignment. These are some of the ways I have used this strategy successfully with my students:

* Writing sentences: Students can write the topic for the sentence in the middle box, and in each square, they can draw pictures of details they want to add to their writing.

* Writing paragraphs: Students write the topic sentence in the middle box. They write a sentence containing a supporting detail in three of the squares and they write a concluding sentence in the last square.

* Writing short essays: Students write what information goes in the topic paragraph in the middle box, then list details to include in supporting paragraphs in the squares.

When I gave students writing assignments, the first thing I had them do was create a Four Square. We did this so often that it became automatic. After filling in the Four Square, they wrote rough drafts by copying their work off of the graphic organizer and into the correct format, either on lined paper or in a Word document. This worked for all of my special education students!

I was able to modify tasks using the Four Square so that all of my students could participate, regardless of their disabilities. Even if they did not know what to write about, they knew how to start the assignment (which is often the hardest part of getting it done!) and they grew to be more confident in their writing abilities.

In addition, when it was time to take the high-stakes state writing tests at the end of the year, this was a strategy my students could use to help them do well on the tests. I was able to give them a sheet of blank paper, and they knew what to do with it. I have used many different curriculum materials and programs to teach writing in the last 16 years, but the Four Square is the one strategy that I have used with every writing assignment, no matter the grade level, because it is so effective.

‘Swift Structures’

Joy Hamm has taught 11 years in a variety of English-language settings, ranging from kindergarten to adult learners. The last few years working with middle and high school Newcomers and completing her M.Ed in TESOL have fostered stronger advocacy in her district and beyond:

A majority of secondary content assessments include open-ended essay questions. Many students falter (not just ELs) because they are unaware of how to quickly organize their thoughts into a cohesive argument. In fact, the WIDA CAN DO Descriptors list level 5 writing proficiency as “organizing details logically and cohesively.” Thus, the most effective cross-curricular secondary writing strategy I use with my intermediate LTELs (long-term English-learners) is what I call “Swift Structures.” This term simply means reading a prompt across any content area and quickly jotting down an outline to organize a strong response.

To implement Swift Structures, begin by displaying a prompt and modeling how to swiftly create a bubble map or outline beginning with a thesis/opinion, then connecting the three main topics, which are each supported by at least three details. Emphasize this is NOT the time for complete sentences, just bulleted words or phrases.

Once the outline is completed, show your ELs how easy it is to plug in transitions, expand the bullets into detailed sentences, and add a brief introduction and conclusion. After modeling and guided practice, set a 5-10 minute timer and have students practice independently. Swift Structures is one of my weekly bell ringers, so students build confidence and skill over time. It is best to start with easy prompts where students have preformed opinions and knowledge in order to focus their attention on the thesis-topics-supporting-details outline, not struggling with the rigor of a content prompt.

Here is one easy prompt example: “Should students be allowed to use their cellphones in class?”

Swift Structure outline:

Thesis - Students should be allowed to use cellphones because (1) higher engagement (2) learning tools/apps (3) gain 21st-century skills

Topic 1. Cellphones create higher engagement in students...

Details A. interactive (Flipgrid, Kahoot)

B. less tempted by distractions

C. teaches responsibility

Topic 2. Furthermore,...access to learning tools...

A. Google Translate description

B. language practice (Duolingo)

C. content tutorials (Kahn Academy)

Topic 3. In addition,...practice 21st-century skills…

Details A. prep for workforce

B. access to information

C. time-management support

This bare-bones outline is like the frame of a house. Get the structure right, and it’s easier to fill in the interior decorating (style, grammar), roof (introduction) and driveway (conclusion). Without the frame, the roof and walls will fall apart, and the reader is left confused by circuitous rubble.

Once LTELs have mastered creating simple Swift Structures in less than 10 minutes, it is time to introduce complex questions similar to prompts found on content assessments or essays. Students need to gain assurance that they can quickly and logically explain and justify their opinions on multiple content essays without freezing under pressure.

Thanks to Jenny, Michele, and Joy for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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Unleashing Creativity: A Guide to Teaching Creative Writing

Thu Apr 18, 2024

Introduction: Creative writing is more than just putting words on paper; it's an exploration of imagination, a journey through the depths of the human experience, and a means of expression unlike any other. Teaching creative writing isn't about simply imparting rules and techniques; it's about nurturing the innate creativity within each individual and providing them with the tools and guidance to unleash their imagination. In this blog post, we'll delve into the art of teaching creative writing and explore strategies to inspire and empower budding writers.

Understanding the Fundamentals: Before diving into the creative process, it's essential to establish a solid foundation of the fundamentals of writing. This includes grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, and vocabulary. While creativity knows no bounds, having a grasp of these basics provides writers with the necessary framework to effectively convey their ideas.

Encouraging Exploration: Creativity flourishes when writers are encouraged to explore different genres, styles, and perspectives. As an instructor, provide opportunities for students to experiment with various forms of writing, whether it's poetry, fiction, non-fiction, or even hybrid forms. Encourage them to step out of their comfort zones and embrace the unknown.

Creating a Supportive Environment: Building a supportive and nurturing environment is crucial for fostering creativity. Encourage open dialogue and constructive feedback among peers. Establishing a community where writers feel safe to share their work without fear of judgment promotes growth and collaboration.

Embracing the Writing Process: The writing process is unique to each individual, but it often involves stages such as brainstorming, drafting, revising, and editing. Teach students to embrace each stage and emphasize that writing is a journey rather than a destination. Encourage them to embrace uncertainty and to see challenges as opportunities for growth.

Igniting Inspiration: Inspiration can be found everywhere, from everyday experiences to dreams and fantasies. Encourage students to keep a journal to capture fleeting ideas and observations. Encourage them to draw inspiration from art, music, nature, and personal experiences. Sparking creativity often involves encouraging writers to see the world through a different lens.

Exercises and Prompts: Engage students with writing exercises and prompts designed to stimulate their creativity. These could include visual prompts, word prompts, writing sprints, or even collaborative storytelling exercises. By challenging students to think outside the box, you'll help them tap into their creative potential.

Cultivating a Growth Mindset: Instill in students the belief that creativity is not fixed but can be developed and nurtured over time. Encourage a growth mindset where setbacks are seen as opportunities for learning and improvement. Celebrate progress and effort rather than focusing solely on outcomes.

Celebrating Diversity: Encourage writers to embrace their unique voices and perspectives. Celebrate diversity in storytelling and highlight the importance of representation in literature. By valuing and amplifying diverse voices, you'll create a richer and more inclusive creative community.

Conclusion: Teaching creative writing is an art in itself, requiring patience, passion, and a deep appreciation for the creative process. By fostering a supportive environment, embracing exploration, and igniting inspiration, you can empower budding writers to unleash their creativity and embark on a lifelong journey of self-expression. As an instructor, your role is not only to teach the craft of writing but to nurture the creative spirit within each student, guiding them as they discover the power of their own voice.

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Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

The world of creative writing is as vast as it is rewarding. It’s a form of expression that allows the writer to explore different worlds, characters, and narratives – all within the power of their pen.

But what exactly is creative writing and why is it important? Let’s explore the value of creative writing and how to inspire young (or old!) minds to embark on the curious and exciting journey of writing creatively – it’s easier than you think!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing, in its simplest form, is writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature.

It’s characterized by its emphasis on:

• narrative craft
• character development
• the use of literary devices

From poetry to plays, scripts to sonnets, creative writing covers a wide range of genres . It’s about painting pictures with words, invoking emotions, and bringing ideas to life . It’s about crafting stories that are compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Whether you’re penning a novel or jotting down a journal entry, creative writing encourages you to unleash your imagination and express your thoughts in a unique, artistic way. For a deeper dive into the realm of creative writing, you can visit our article on what is creative writing .

Benefits of Developing Creative Writing Skills

The benefits of creative writing extend beyond the page.

It’s not just about creating captivating stories or crafting beautiful prose. The skills developed through creative writing are invaluable in many aspects of life and work.

1. Creative writing fosters creativity and imagination. 

It encourages you to think outside the box, broaden your perspective, and explore new ideas. It also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, as it involves conveying thoughts, emotions, and narratives in a clear and compelling manner.

2. Creative writing aids in improving critical thinking skills.

It prompts you to analyze characters, plotlines, and themes, and make connections between different ideas. This process activates different parts of the mind, drawing on personal experiences, the imagination, logical plot development, and emotional intelligence.

3. Creative writing is also a valuable tool for self-expression and personal growth.

It allows you to explore your feelings, experiences, and observations, providing an outlet for self-reflection and introspection. By both reading and writing about different characters in different situations, readers develop empathy in a gentle but effective way.

4. Creative writing skills can open up a host of career opportunities.

From authors and editors to content creators and copywriters, the demand for creative writers is vast and varied. You can learn more about potential career paths in our article on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

In essence, creative writing is more than just an art—it’s a skill, a craft, and a powerful tool for communication and self-expression. Whether you’re teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art.

The 3 Roles of a Creative Writing Teacher

Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher’s role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity , nurturing talent , and providing constructive criticism . These elements play a significant role in shaping budding writers and fostering their passion for the craft.

1. Inspiring Creativity

The primary function of a creative writing teacher is to inspire creativity.

They must foster an environment that encourages students to think outside the box and explore new possibilities . This includes presenting students with creative writing prompts that challenge their thinking, promoting lively discussions around various topics, and providing opportunities for students to engage in creative writing activities for kids .

Teachers should also expose students to a range of literary genres , styles, and techniques to broaden their understanding and appreciation of the craft. This exposure not only enhances their knowledge but also stimulates their creativity, encouraging them to experiment with different writing styles .

2. Nurturing Talent

Nurturing talent involves recognizing the unique abilities of each student and providing the necessary support and guidance to help them develop these skills. A creative writing teacher needs to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student and tailor their approach accordingly.

This means:

• offering personalized feedback
• setting realistic yet challenging goals
• providing opportunities for students to showcase their work

Encouraging students to participate in writing competitions or to publish their work can give them a confidence boost and motivate them to improve. Furthermore, teachers should educate students about various creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree . This knowledge can inspire students to pursue their passion for writing and explore career opportunities in the field.

3. Providing Constructive Criticism

Providing constructive criticism is a critical aspect of teaching creative writing. It involves assessing students’ work objectively and providing feedback that helps them improve .

Teachers should:

• highlight the strengths of the work
• address the areas that need improvement
• suggest ways to make the piece better

Constructive criticism should be specific, actionable, and encouraging . It’s important to remember that the goal is to help the student improve, not to discourage them. Therefore, teachers need to communicate their feedback in a respectful and supportive manner.

In essence, a teacher’s role in teaching creative writing extends beyond mere instruction. They are mentors who inspire, nurture, and shape the minds of budding writers. By fostering a supportive and stimulating environment, they can help students unlock their creative potential and develop a lifelong love for writing.

3 Techniques for Teaching Creative Writing

When it comes to understanding how to teach creative writing, there are several effective techniques that can help inspire students and foster their writing skills.

1. Encouraging Free Writing Exercises

Free writing is a technique that encourages students to write continuously for a set amount of time without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or topic. This type of exercise can help unleash creativity, as it allows students to freely express their thoughts and ideas without judgment or constraint.

As a teacher, you can set a specific theme or provide creative writing prompts to guide the writing session. Alternatively, you can allow students to write about any topic that comes to mind. The key is to create an environment that encourages creative exploration and expression.

2. Exploring Different Genres

Another effective technique is to expose students to a wide range of writing genres. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, fantasy, mystery, and more. By exploring different genres, students can discover their unique writing styles and interests. This variety also offers the chance to expand their writing skills and apply them to various writing formats.

To facilitate this exploration, you can assign writing projects in different genres, conduct genre-specific writing workshops, or invite guest speakers who specialize in different genres. You can also encourage students to critically analyze how different authors approach their work.

3. Analyzing Published Works

Analyzing published works is a powerful way to teach creative writing. This technique allows students to learn from established authors by studying their:

• writing styles
• narrative structures
• use of language.

It also provides a practical context for understanding writing concepts and techniques.

As a teacher, you can select diverse pieces of literature for analysis , ranging from classic novels to contemporary short stories. Encourage students to identify elements they admire in these works and discuss how they can incorporate similar techniques into their own writing.

These techniques for teaching creative writing are effective ways to inspire creativity, encourage self-expression, and develop writing skills. As a teacher, your role is crucial in guiding students through their creative journey and helping them realize their potential as writers.

Creative Writing Workshops and Exercises

One effective method on how to teach creative writing is through the use of targeted workshops and exercises. These interactive sessions can stimulate creativity, foster character development , and help in understanding story structures .

Idea Generation Workshops

Idea generation is a crucial aspect of creative writing. It is the starting point that provides a springboard for writers to explore and develop their narratives. Idea generation workshops can be an interactive and fun way to help writers come up with fresh ideas.

Workshops can include brainstorming sessions , where writers are encouraged to think freely and note down all ideas, no matter how unconventional they may seem. Another method is the use of writing prompts , which can serve as a creative spark.

A prompt could be:

• even an image

Editor’s Note : Encourage children to create a big scribble on a scrap piece of paper and then look for an image in it (like looking for pictures in the clouds). This can be a great creative writing prompt and students will love sharing their writing with each other! Expect lots of giggles and fun!

Character Development Exercises

Characters are the heart of any story. They drive the narrative and engage the readers. Character development exercises can help writers create well-rounded and relatable characters.

Such exercises can include character questionnaires , where writers answer a series of questions about their characters to gain a deeper understanding of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations. Role-playing activities can also be useful, allowing writers to step into their characters’ shoes and explore their reactions in different scenarios.

Story Structure Workshops

Understanding story structure is vital for creating a compelling narrative. Story structure workshops can guide writers on how to effectively structure their stories to engage readers from start to finish .

These workshops can cover essential elements of story structures like:

• rising action
• falling action

In addition to understanding the basics, writers should be encouraged to experiment with different story structures to find what works best for their narrative style. An understanding of story structure can also help in analyzing and learning from published works .

Providing writers with the right tools and techniques, through workshops and exercises, can significantly improve their creative writing skills. It’s important to remember that creativity flourishes with practice and patience .

As a teacher, nurturing this process is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative writing. For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing .

Tips to Enhance Creative Writing Skills

The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one’s own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your creative writing abilities and make your teaching methods more effective.

Regular Practice

Like any other skill, creative writing requires regular practice . Foster the habit of writing daily, even if it’s just a few lines. This will help you stay in touch with your creative side and continually improve your writing skills. Encourage your students to do the same.

Introduce them to various creative writing prompts to stimulate their imagination and make their writing practice more engaging.

Reading Widely

Reading is an essential part of becoming a better writer. By reading widely, you expose yourself to a variety of styles, tones, and genres . This not only broadens your literary horizons but also provides a wealth of ideas for your own writing.

Encourage your students to read extensively as well. Analyzing and discussing different works can be an excellent learning exercise and can spark creative ideas .

Exploring Various Writing Styles

The beauty of creative writing lies in its diversity. From poetic verses to gripping narratives, there’s a wide range of styles to explore. Encourage your students to try their hand at different forms of writing. This not only enhances their versatility but also helps them discover their unique voice as a writer.

To help them get started, you can introduce a variety of creative writing activities for kids . These tasks can be tailored to suit different age groups and proficiency levels. Remember, the goal is to foster a love for writing, so keep the activities fun and engaging .

Have Fun Teaching Creative Writing!

Enhancing creative writing skills is a continuous journey. It requires persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. As a teacher, your role is to guide your students on this journey, providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to flourish as writers – and most of all – enjoy the process!

For more insights on creative writing, be sure to explore our articles on what is creative writing and creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024: 

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

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How to Teach Creative Writing

Last Updated: March 13, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 117,463 times.

Creative writing is one of the most enjoyable types of writing for students. Not only does it allow students to explore their imaginations, but it helps them to structure their ideas and produce writing that they can be proud of. However, creative writing is a relatively difficult type of writing to teach and offers challenges to both new and seasoned teachers alike. Fortunately, though, with some work of their own, teachers can better develop their own abilities to teach creative writing.

Providing Students with the Fundamentals

• Theme. The theme of a story is its message or the main idea behind it.
• Setting. The setting of a story is the location or time it takes place in.
• Plot. The plot is the overall story, narrative, or sequence of events.
• Characterization. Characterization is how a character or person in a story is explained or presented to the reader.
• Conflict and dramatic action. Conflict and dramatic action are the main events of focus in the story. These events are often tense or exciting and are used to lure the reader in. [1] X Research source

• Explain how your students, as writers, can appeal to the humanity of their readers. One great way to do this is to ask them to explore character development. By developing the characters in their story, readers will become invested in the story.
• Discuss the triggers that engage readers in an effective story. Most great stories start with a problem, which is solved with the resolution, or conclusion of the story. Encourage students to create an engaging problem that will hook the readers in the first few pages of a short story or novel. [2] X Research source

• By setting the tone and atmosphere of a story, the author will establish his or her attitude to the subject and the feel of the story.
• Tone can be positive, neutral, or negative. [3] X Research source
• Atmosphere can be dark, happy, or neither.
• Descriptive words like “darkness” or “sunshine” can help set both the tone and atmosphere. [4] X Research source

• Active verbs are used to show action in the story.
• Active verbs are very often a better alternative to passive voice, as it keeps your writing clear and concise for your readers. [5] X Research source
• For example, instead of writing “The cat was chased by the dog” your student can write “The dog chased the cat.”

Guiding Students through the Process

• Tell your students to brainstorm about ideas they are truly interested in.
• If you must restrict the general topic, make sure that your students have a good amount of wiggle room within the broad topic of the assignment.
• Never assign specific topics and force students to write. This will undermine the entire process. [6] X Research source

• Letting your students know that the outline is non-binding. They don’t have to follow it in later steps of the writing process.
• Telling your students that the parts of their outline should be written very generally.
• Recommending that your students create several outlines, or outlines that go in different directions (in terms of plot and other elements of storytelling). The more avenues your students explore, the better. [7] X Research source

• Tell students that there is no “right” way to write a story.
• Let students know that their imaginations should guide their way.
• Show students examples of famous writing that breaks normal patterns, like the works of E.E. Cummings, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare.
• Ask students to forget about any expectations they think you have for how a story should be written. [8] X Research source

• Gather the first drafts and comment on the student's work. For first drafts, you want to check on the overall structure of the draft, proper word use, punctuation, spelling, and overall cohesion of the piece. [9] X Research source
• Remind them that great writers usually wrote several drafts before they were happy with their stories.
• Avoid grading drafts for anything other than completion.

• Let students pair off to edit each others' papers.
• Have your students join groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to go edit and provide feedback on each member’s story.
• Provide guidance so students contribute constructively to the group discussion. [10] X Research source

• Reward your students if they are innovative or do something unique and truly creative.
• Avoid evaluating your students based on a formula.
• Assess and review your own standards as often as you can. Remember that the point is to encourage your students' creativity. [11] X Research source

Spurring Creativity

• Teach your students about a variety of writers and genres.
• Have your students read examples of different genres.
• Promote a discussion within your class of the importance of studying literature.
• Ask students to consider the many ways literature improves the world and asks individuals to think about their own lives. [12] X Research source

• Make sure your room is stocked with a wide variety of fiction stories.
• Make sure your room is stocked with plenty of paper for your students to write on.
• Line up other writing teachers or bring in writers from the community to talk to and encourage your students.

• Cut out pictures and photographs from magazines, comic books, and newspapers.
• Have your students cut out photographs and pictures and contribute them to your bank.
• Consider having your students randomly draw a given number of photos and pictures and writing a short story based on what they draw.
• This technique can help students overcome writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [13] X Research source

• Pair your students with students from another grade in your school.
• Allow your students to write stories that younger students in your school would like to read.
• Pair your students with another student in the class and have them evaluate each others' work. [14] X Research source

• If you just have a typical classroom to work with, make sure to put inspirational posters or other pictures on the walls.
• Open any curtains so students can see outside.
• If you have the luxury of having an extra classroom or subdividing your own classroom, create a comfortable space with a lot of inspirational visuals.
• Writing spaces can help break writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [15] X Research source

• Involve students in the printing process.
• Publication does not have to be expensive or glossy.
• Copies can be made in the school workroom if possible or each student might provide a copy for the others in the group.
• A collection of the stories can be bound with a simple stapler or brads.
• Seek out other opportunities for your students to publish their stories.

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• ↑ https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/creative-writing-101
• ↑ https://kobowritinglife.com/2012/10/14/six-tips-for-engaging-readers-within-two-seconds-the-hook-in-fiction-and-memoir/
• ↑ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/in-writing-tone-is-the-author%E2%80%99s-attitude/
• ↑ http://ourenglishclass.net/class-notes/writing/the-writing-process/craft/tone-and-mood/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/
• ↑ http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-steps-to-creating-a-flexible-outline-for-any-story
• ↑ http://thewritepractice.com/the-formula-to-write-a-novel/
• ↑ https://student.unsw.edu.au/editing-your-essay
• ↑ http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/5-promoting-creative-writing
• ↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/grade-creative-writing-paper-3698.html
• ↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/educating-teenagers-emotions-through-literature/476790/
• ↑ http://www.wrightingwords.com/for-teachers/5-tips-for-teaching-creative-writing/

About This Article

To teach creative writing, start by introducing your students to the core elements of storytelling, like theme, setting, and plot, while reminding them that there’s no formula for combining these elements to create a story. Additionally, explain how important it is to use tone and atmosphere, along with active verbs, to write compelling stories that come alive. When your students have chosen their topics, have them create story outlines before they begin writing. Then, read their rough drafts and provide feedback to keep them on the right path to storytelling success. For tips from our English reviewer on how to spur creativity in your students, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Teach Creative Writing to High School Students

Creative Writing was forced onto my schedule; I didn’t ask for it. But it ended up becoming my favorite class period of the day. While academic English courses can feel high-stakes and always short on time, Creative Writing can be a refreshingly relaxed elective class. In many districts with loose curriculums, Creative Writing is what you make of it. In this post, I outline six steps to show you how to teach creative writing to high school students.

Why Teach Creative Writing

Before we get into the how , let’s first address the why . Why bother teaching Creative Writing in the first place? Students’ basic skills are lower than ever; is now really the time to encourage them to break the rules?

If you want to get really deep into why you should teach Creative Writing, I have a whole post about it here.

But think about why you love reading. Is it because you were made to annotate or close read a bunch of classic novels? Probably not. You probably fell in love with reading while you were reading something that was fun. And because it was fun, you read more, and your skills as a reader grew.

The same principle applies to writing. If we can make it fun for our students, perhaps we can foster a love for it. And passion is what leads, eventually, to mastery.

Giving our students the opportunity to fall in love with writing is a gift that might help them grow in their academic writing later.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #1: Decide on Your Standards or Goals

Your school or district may have a mandated syllabus or curriculum. Mine did not. 

Whether you’re given student goals or have to create them, you must have an overall vision for what your Creative Writing class will accomplish. 

Is this a laid-back, engaging course designed to help students discover the fun in writing? Or is it a supplement to rigorous academics for college-bound high school students? 

If you know your school’s student population well, I encourage you to think about their needs. Some students just need to write more–more of anything, but lots more. Some students are high achieving and ready to write their first novels! If possible, design your course around the needs and interests of the general student population in your school or district. 

Regardless of how rigorous your Creative Writing course will be, deciding on these goals first will help you in backwards planning. 

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #2: Choose Your Final Assessments and Big Projects

Before we can start planning our lessons, we have to decide what skills or knowledge our students will need. And to know what they need, we have to decide on their summative assessments.

Will your final assessment be a short story? A collection of poetry? Are you required to offer a final exam?

Once you know what students will need to do, you can make a list of the skill they’ll need. This list will become a list of lessons you’ll need to teach.

Fairy Tale Retelling Project

My Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great Creative Writing assessment. For this project, students had to first choose a fairy tale. Then, they rewrote the story from the perspective of the villain.

This project works really well because students have structure. They can pick any fairy tale they want, but they can’t write about just anything.

Secondly, students already know the story, so they don’t have to worry about a beginning, middle, and end. The open-endedness of writing a story completely from scratch has paralyzed my students before. Structure allows students lots of creative freedom without the excuse of “I don’t know what to write.”

Author Study Project

If you’d like your Creative Writing class to help beginner writers have fun and just get some practice with fiction writing, a Fairy Tale Retelling Project would probably be perfect for your class.

Another project I’ve done with my students is an Author Study . In this project, students choose one author to study in-depth. Then, they attempt to replicate that author’s style in an original work.

If you’d like your class to also include lots of exposure to other writers or classic literature, then this might be a great assessment for your class.

Learn more about doing an author study in this step-by-step post.

Test or Final Exam

I also gave my students a final exam focused on literary terms.

This Literary Terms Test allowed me to test students on the academic knowledge they gained throughout class instead of their writing ability. This test also helped me fulfill my district’s requirement of having a final exam at the end of each course.

Once you’ve decided on your class’s major projects and assessments, you can begin designing the rest of your class.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #3: Backwards Plan

Now that you know what your students will need to do at the end of this class, you can list out everything you need to teach them in order for them to be successful.

For example, if you opt for an author study as a final project, you know what you will need to cover. You will need to teach students some literary terms so that they can describe an author’s style. You’ll need to show them how to analyze a poem.

During the course of your class, you’ll also want to expose students to a variety of authors and mentor texts. Students will need to practice basic writing techniques in order to replicate those of their chosen authors.

If you need some inspiration for what kinds of lessons to teach, check out this post on essential Creative Writing lessons.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #4: Decide on Your Class Structure

Once you’ve decided on the end goals for your Creative Writing class, you can use them to help create day-to-day plans. 

What will your class look like? Will it be full of lots of quiet and independent work time? Will it be full of frenetic energy with students working in collaborative groups? Are students writing in notebooks or on laptops?

Of course, a successful class will most likely include a mixture of all of the above. But it’s up to you to decide on your ratio. 

Again, I encourage you to think about your school’s population. If you’re on ninety-minute blocks, is it realistic for students to be quietly writing that whole time? If you have high-achieving students, might they benefit from working independently at home and then getting and giving peer feedback during class time?

Use your goals to help decide on a general class structure. 

Warm-ups for Creative Writing

You’ll need a consistent way to begin each class.

When I initially began teaching Creative Writing, I just wanted to provide my students with more time to write. We began every class period with free writing. I gave students a couple of prompts to choose from each day, and then we’d write for about ten minutes. 

( Those journal prompts are right here . Every day includes two prompts plus a third option of freewriting.)

Students were given the option to share part of their writing if they wanted to. Every couple of weeks I’d flip through their notebooks to make sure they were keeping up, but I only read the entries they starred for me in advance. 

Later, I wanted to add some rigor to my Creative Writing class and leverage more mentor texts. I created a Poem of the Week activity for each week of the course. 

This gave students the opportunity to study professional writing before using it as a mentor text for a new, original piece. 

(You can read more about using these Poem of the Week activities here.) 

As my goals for the class and my students change, so did the way we began class. 

How can you begin your class in a way that supports the end goals or teaches the desired standards? How often will peers work together?

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #5: Focus on Engagement Strategies

Now you can actually start planning lessons and projects!

But as you do so, focus on creating engaging ones–especially if your class is meant to be a fun elective.

Need more tips? Check out this post full of Creative Writing teaching tips!

Use Mentor Texts and Lots of Examples

Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together without knowing what the image was going to look like? It would be pretty difficult! Similarly, students need lots of examples of strong writing to aspire to. 

Without clear models or mentor texts , students will happily turn in unread drafts. They’ll choose the first word that comes to their mind instead of searching for a better one. 

But if you surround students with great writing, highlight strong technique when discussing the writing of others, and challenge them to notice the details in their own writing, they’ll naturally become better at self-editing.

I don’t believe that you can provide students with too many mentor texts or examples of strong writing. As you teach Creative Writing, keep or take pictures of strong writing samples from students to use as examples later. 

Nearly all of my lessons and projects include an example along with instruction.

Model and Create with Your Students

You can even use your own writing as an example. When I had students free write to creative writing prompts, I always wrote with them. Sometimes I would then put my notebook under the document camera and model reading my own work.  

I would cross out words and replace them or underline phrases I thought were strong enough to keep. Model for students not just great writing, but the process of strengthening writing.

And then give them plenty of time to edit theirs. This is when having students engage in peer feedback is a game-changer. 

Without great writing to aspire to, however, students easily become lazy and turn in work that is “good enough” in their eyes. Don’t let them get lazy in their writing. Keep throwing greater and greater work in front of them and challenge them to push themselves. 

(This is another reason I love using Poem of the Week warm-ups –they expose students to a new writer every week!)

Set Clear Expectations

Creative writing causes a lot of students anxiety. There’s no “right” answer, so how will they know if they creatively wrote “correctly?”

Help them out by setting clear expectations. Offering a rubric for every project is great for this. If you can, give them specifics to include. “At least 500 words” or “three or more similes” are nice, concrete guidelines that students can follow.

Give Students Choice

Offering students choice always boosts engagement. It lets students take charge of their learning and pursue something that interests them.

For example, when I teach odes , students are given the opportunity to write about something they love.

With an author study , students can study a writer whose style and work they admire.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #6: Use Clear and Structured Expectations

While showing students excellent prose or perfect poetry should help inspire students, your writers will still need some hard parameters to follow. 

Academic writing is often easier for students than creative writing. Usually, academic writing follows a structure or certain formula. The rubric dictates exactly how many quotes need to be included or how long an essay needs to be. MLA or APA formats tell students how to punctuate quotes and citations. 

These rules don’t apply to creative writing. And while that’s exactly what makes creative writing awesome, it’s often overwhelming. 

So do your students a favor and give them some clear expectations (without, of course, entirely dictating what they need to write about).  

The project also includes a rubric, so young writers know what should be included in their stories.

Don’t give your students so much creative freedom that it paralyzes them! Your writers are still students; give them the same level of structure and organization that you would in any other class. 

Engage your students in more creative writing!

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Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #7: Give Students Choices

So how do you give students frameworks, requirements, and uphold high expectations without stifling their creativity?

Give students choices. You can write about A, B, or C, as long as you meet requirements 1, 2, and 3. 

Offering choices works with small one-day assignments or lessons as well as bigger, longer-term projects. 

The previously mentioned Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great example of offering a narrow selection of choices that uphold expectations without dictating what students write. 

Another one of my favorite examples of offering students choices is my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-lesson . This lesson touches on everything students need to successfully learn creative writing. 

First I teach them the concept of showing vs. telling in writing through direct instruction. I show them lots of examples of expanding a “telling sentence” into a “showing paragraph.”

Then I model for students how I would write a paragraph that shows crucial information, rather than telling it. 

Lastly, I have students pick a strip of paper from a hat or a bag. Each strip of paper contains a “telling sentence” that they must then write as a “showing paragraph.” Students are limited by the sentences I provide, but they still have complete freedom over how they achieve that detailed paragraph. 

If you wanted to give students even more freedom, you could let them pick their sentences or trade with a peer rather than blindly choosing. 

Any time you can give students a choice, you give them permission to use their creativity and allow them to take some of the initiative in their own learning.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #8: Encourage Peer Collaboration and Feedback

We can tell students something a hundred times, but they won’t listen until a peer says the same thing. Us educators know the value of positive peer interaction, so don’t limit it in a creative writing class!

There are a ton of ways to implement peer interaction in a creative writing class. I often do this on the first day of class with a writing game. You’ve probably heard of it: everyone writes a sentence on a piece of paper, then everyone passes the paper and adds a sentence, and so on. 

I highly encourage you to use peer feedback throughout the class. I usually start having students share their work from day one with my free “I Am” Poem Lesson so that they can start getting used to having their work read by others immediately.

Make getting feedback so routine in your room that students don’t even question it.

It’s really tempting to let students get away without sharing their work. We don’t want to make shy or anxious students uncomfortable. I mean, what better way to completely ruin creative writing for a student than to make them feel embarrassed all the time, right?

But keep trying to encourage shy students to share. Even if that means you share it anonymously or read it aloud for them. 

I recommend including some kind of peer feedback with every writing assignment . Yes, even short practice assignments. This will work as a kind of “immersion therapy” for receiving feedback on more involved work.

After some time, you might find that your students even begin to share their work without your prompting! 

I like to organize the desks in my Creative Writing class so that students are in little groups. I’ve found that at least half of my classes will begin talking and sharing with one another in their little groups while working on projects. 

They’ll ask each other questions or to remind them of a word. They’ll read sentences aloud and ask if they sound right. Personally, I would much rather hear this kind of chatter in my class than have a dead silent room of boring writers!

However you decide to allow students to work together, be sure to provide the opportunity. Reading and getting feedback from peers could possibly teach students more about writing than any of your instruction (sorry!).

One of the truly great things about teaching creative writing to high school students is that there often isn’t a rigid curriculum. Of course, this is also sometimes one of the worst things about teaching creative writing to high school students!

You have total freedom over the assignments you give, the standards you teach, and how you organize and structure your classroom. After a few years of teaching Creative Writing, however, I’ve found that sticking to these six steps is a great way to have a successful semester.

If you’re excited about teaching your Creative Writing class, but are running low on prep time, check out my complete 9-week Creative Writing course ! Included are two different types of warm-ups, poetry analysis activities from well-known authors, mini-lesson, projects, and more!

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4 strategies for teaching creative writing

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Tip 1: Crossing out

Tip 2: explicitly teach sentence stems, tip 3: build a planning routine, tip 4: go big or go home.

A blank page can be a fearful thing. As I sit typing this (cocooned in the corner of a bustling coffee shop), it seems a fearful thing to me, too. One by one, words tentatively appear, and yet the whiteness of the page dominates and suffocates the lettered blackness.

It can be an especially fearful thing for our students. Surrounded by the silence of an examination hall, pens scratching cold paper, they sit and stare at the mountainous alps of their booklet. The summit stretches out a great distance away, with so little time to plot and navigate their way.

This is often most keenly felt in creative writing. Being creative on demand is no easy task. The blankness of the paper is only compounded by the apparent blankness of ideas. And still, the clock ticks. In this article, I’ll share four top tips for helping students get better at creative writing, ensuring they always have something ready to fill the whiteness of the page.

One of the biggest conceptual shifts I’ve made in my teaching of creative writing is to focus on crossing out . When we—or our students— cross something out in their writing, what does it imply? It invariably implies a moment of thought and consideration. Is this the best word the gesture suggests, or should I use a different one?

Encouraging students to adopt a crossing-out mentality can be hugely powerful. As we write, I’ll often remind students to look for any words they could cross out, modelling this in my own writing. As I write, I cross out, always being sure to narrate why I’ve crossed something out and what is replacing it .

Of course, in and of itself, crossing out does not guarantee progress. It is a proxy, but a helpful one. Crossing out becomes a concrete and easily understood analogy for the kind of deliberate, sustained crafting that so often characterises the best writing. We don’t just want students to fill up their blank pages; we want them to fill them up with excellent writing .

In order to cross out, students need something to cross out in the first place. This is where repeatable and recyclable sentence stems come into their own. They provide students with snippets of excellent writing they can drag and drop into their response, adapting as necessary.

Students often complain—rightly so—that creative writing can be bereft of content to revise. Sentence stems give them something tangible to rehearse. Teach them in advance, show students how to manipulate them, and get students to experiment on their own.

If the sentence occupies the micro, then students also need a sharp and cohesive macro structure in order to succeed. This is where planning becomes essential.

To help students with this, I explicitly teach and model a particular planning routine that can be adapted and adopted at the start of an examination. This helps students make sure they’re asking the best questions as well as get them into the zone.

This routine always looks the same, sketched out on a single side of A4, and goes like this:

• POV: Students decide the narrative point of view they wish to adopt, which is especially valuable if responding to an image, like many questions require.
• Happy or sad: Students now consider if their point of view is happy or sad. I purposely keep this question very broad, but they may wish to be a little more nuanced in their emotional choice. The key is that they’re thinking about an emotional groove for their piece.
• Why? Now, students can reflect on why their point of view is happy or sad, beginning to build some kind of backstory or narrative thrust to their writing.

At this point, and with some basics covered, students can sketch out an overall structure for their response. At the most basic level possible, I like: First, Next, Next, And Then . What happens first, and then next, and then next, and then how does it end?

Finally, I ask students to consider a big idea they would like to convey within their writing.

With all of this mapped out, students can now begin to write.

Let’s pause for a moment on this idea of a ‘big idea’. It is easy to imagine what this means when teaching a literature text, and we probably spend a lot of time considering it with our classes.

What is Shakespeare trying to accomplish in Macbeth, we might explore? Interwoven with our discussion of the play, we consider Shakespeare’s depiction of power and the way it corrupts, as well as his depiction of kingship or femininity. These are some of the play’s big ideas.

A consideration of the ‘big’ is just as important for a student’s own writing as it is for the literature they study. What is it that they wish to show or explore in their writing? What do they want to do? Helping students to appreciate they can have something to say within their own writing can be truly empowering and liberating.

In my own modelling, I like to return to the concept of time . This unlocks so many interesting directions: transience, time passing, memory, recapturing youth. But it also provides a wealth of imagery for students to leverage. Wrinkled hands, a faded wedding ring, a scratched and crumpled photograph, an item of clothing lovingly stored away at the back of a wardrobe, gathering dust.

This block is currently empty. Please add some content.

A blank page can be a fearful thing, it’s true. But one filled with scribbled writing, well, that can be joyful.

These four strategies will hopefully help your students make sure they turn their blank pages into a piece of writing they can be truly proud of.

Andrew Atherton

Andrew Atherton is an English teacher at a school in Berkshire. He runs the popular blog site Codexterous , which includes a wealth of posts outlining strategies for teaching English Literature and English Language as well as lots of resources.

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12 ideas for teaching creative writing

Teaching creative writing to kids can be one of the most rewarding parts of teaching the English curriculum. But with so many statutory requirements to hit in a portfolio of writing, it can be difficult to capture truly creative writing as well as instil enthusiasm for the art.

Some of your class will really enjoy creative writing from scratch. For others, this will be a daunting experience. We have gathered together a collection of simple ideas for teaching creative writing to help your pupils smash writing tasks.

Creative writing tips for teachers

• Use a workshop-style environment
• Show your class how it’s done
• Draw up a storyboard
• Encourage book reading
• Re-write a known story
• Show, don’t tell
• Inspire them with video
• Deconstruct characters
• Give your pupils freedom
• Use story-starters and prompts
• Elaborate with a story generator
• Get the children to take creative writing home

1. Use a workshop-style environment

Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on. Some may look to write fiction pieces and use ideas around storytelling. Another group could focus on word games, spelling and puzzle-solving. There could even just be a group for reading stories and learning the craft!

All children are able to work in groups, but each pupil will have one-to-one time with you too. As long as assignments and tasks are rotated, children will find their favourite part and be more engaged as a result. Working this way can also lead to competitions and collaborative creative writing work.

2. Show your class how it’s done

The adage is ‘practise what you preach’. When it comes to creative writing, this means you should be showing the class what the process is.

Doing live creative writing sessions for your class can give them perspective on how to build a story effectively. More importantly, it gives them chance to see how it’s OK to make mistakes, how to take criticism and that they shouldn’t be afraid to create whatever they feel they want to. You could even get your more able (and confident!) pupils to live write on the board for the class to gather inspiration from; pupil modelling can be a really fantastic assessment for learning activity.

3. Draw up a storyboard

Some visual cues might be the key to unlocking greater creativity in your pupils. Instead of writing out a story, why not begin with a storyboard? It doesn’t need to be a work of art – simple stick people will do the job.

Once you’ve drawn out the basis of your story, you can then start to write down more detail to really flesh out their story.

4. Encourage book reading

If there is one place anyone can go to experience good storytelling, it’s in books. Reading brings a whole host of benefits to children form an educational standpoint – many of which apply to creative writing.

To increase vocabulary, improve creativity and enflame imaginations (plus a whole lot more), we should always be looking for more reading opportunities for pupils in class. Beyond the classroom, encourage them to do as much reading as possible at home too.

5. Re-write a known story

If you’re struggling for ideas, why not take inspiration from one of the countless legendary stories already out there. Give a classic story a twist and ask the class to elaborate on it:

• Three Billy Goats Gruff are the ones under the bridge, and you’re trying to cross it
• At the top of Jack’s Beanstalk is Mars
• Aladdin rubs his lamp, but what are his three wishes?
• The three bears are the ones sneaking into Goldilocks’ house

6. Show, don’t tell

It’s a tenant of good storytelling across many different mediums. The idea of show, don’t tell means the writer should avoid explaining every aspect of what a character is feeling or thinking and instead focus on different ways of revealing that information in the story.

For example, give your class some basic information like “the boy was sad”, and ask to write a sentence that would display that information more creatively. It could become, “the boy’s heart sank, his head bowed and he sniffled as the tears began to fall.”

This way, the reader is able to unravel the emotions involved in the story themselves, rather than being told.

7. Inspire them with video

YouTube is a treasure trove of learning resources and other helpful content that can boost a pupil’s creative writing capability. With a quick search, you’ll find plenty of interviews with famed writers sharing their experiences in the job.

Use these to dig a little deeper into the mind of a writer. What is there process for coming up with ideas? What are the challenges they face? This type of content can provide key takeaways that pupils can bring into their next creative writing task.

8. Deconstruct characters

A simple but effective method for getting into the routine of character building involves writing down what makes them tick. Take a famous character from a book or a famous children’s TV show. Split a piece of paper into a grid, and label them with things like “what makes them happy”, “what makes them angry” “How would they react in a certain situation?”

Then as a class fill out the grid. You could use them method when a pupil comes up with a new character for their story, helping them to get in the correct mindsight for creating characters.

9. Give your pupils freedom

There will be a lot of children in your class who thrive when given the freedom to write. Always remember to set aside time for your pupils to have an open-ended opportunity to write, allowing them to express their favourite topics. If it’s too open for some children, then proposing a particular topic for this time can help too.

10. Use story-starters and prompts

Story-starters or prompts are great for getting the creative juices flowing. It helps pupils to avoid the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. We’ve got a whole load of story starters for KS1 and KS2 creative writers, but here are just a few to get the juices flowing:

• It was there and then it was gone! As quick as a flash…
• This was it! I now had the power to change anything.
• A million pounds sat there in the suitcase. “What should we do with it?” I said.
• The three friends set out on their journey, with nothing but each other to help them for what lied ahead.
• The car lurched down the road when suddenly a thud came from below.
• The tap on my shoulder woke me. “Shhh” she said with a finger pressed to her lips. “Follow me.”

11. Elaborate with a story generator

Generate ideas and get a story rolling with a tried and tested method: the story generator. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

• Find three bags
• Create three lists: one for characters (a footballer, a dog, an astronaut etc), one for scenes (an unknown planet, a bedroom, a park etc) and one for the situation (looking for a lost coin, meets a talking dog, during a big thunderstorm etc)
• Cut out each of the ideas and group them together in the bags. You have three bags filled with dozens of possibilities for different stories.
• Ask a pupil to reach into each bag so they then have a character, a scene and a situation. This is the basis of their story.

12. Get the children to take creative writing home

The home environment will be a more comfortable or possibly, a more inspiring place for children to write their stories. Encouraging parents to get onside with this can sometimes be a battle, but one worth fighting. Sharing their stories and creations across different audiences is a valuable experience for children, whether that be in class, at home or safely online. The perfect flipped classroom experience!

Amber Vaccianna

Hope Education writer

Advice & Inspiration | Primary

9 october 2020.

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8 Smart Strategies for Teaching Writing

Inside: Teaching writing DOESN’T have to be complicated! With these simple strategies, you can improve students’ writing without having to work so hard.

I turned around to an outstretched notebook in a kid’s hands.

“I don’t know what to do next,” said the student.

I leaned closer to decipher the 2nd-grade handwriting. Then with my most positive I’ll-guide-you-on-the-right-path tone, I gave the student an idea to run with.

I straightened up, ready to move about the class, peering over shoulders, offering feedback as needed.

My bubble was abruptly burst.

Standing behind me was a whole line of kids that didn’t know what to do next!

Have you been there, too? What you need are writing strategies for students that break down a complicated process into pieces they can tackle. 

What follows are some of the best methods for teaching writing that I discovered over the years:

Teaching Writing Strategies for Students

Use Mentor Texts

If you wanted to learn how to decorate your mantle, you might look for great examples on Pinterest and then try to make yours look like that.

Similarly, kids can look at the work of published authors to see how a pro writes.

Mentor texts are published pieces that serve as a good example of the type of writing you’re helping your students to produce.

If you’re teaching how-to writing, find books about making crafts, cooking, or other DIY topics.  If you’re teaching report writing, look at nonfiction books.

• Read these books (or parts of them) to your students.
• Talk as a class about the special features you notice.
• Make a list of these features (how-to books have numbered steps, pictures to match, sequence, etc.)

Demonstrate

Cooking shows are popular because it’s easy to watch how a good cook puts together a recipe and then do the same yourself. Writing demonstrations are similar.

One method for teaching writing is writing demonstrations. Students watch as a proficient writer writes, and thinks aloud, similar to an audience watching a chef on a cooking show.

Write in front of your students and think aloud as you’re doing it.  Thinking aloud is a research-based teaching strategy .  You are the proficient writer in the room and you want your students to begin modeling their thinking processes after yours.

Some writing skills you might demonstrate are:

• brainstorming topics to write about
• creating a plan for writing
• orally rehearsing sentences and then writing them down
• stretching out sounds in words for spelling
• rereading and editing writing
• looking for places to add more interesting vocabulary
• making a final copy that incorporates editing and revisions

Use Sentence Starters

Staring at a blank page can be so intimidating!

Help kids get started with a list of possible sentence starters. Here’s an example list of sentence starters that work well for opinion writing .

Join my weekly newsletter and as a bonus, you’ll get the sentence starter page pictured above. Just click here to download and subscribe .

Color Coding

One method for teaching writing is using color coding between the plan and the draft.

(you can find the pictured graphic organizer HERE )

Use color-coding to make writing organization obvious and to connect a student’s plan to their draft.

• Assign a different color to each element of a piece.
• Mark whatever planning graphic organizer you’re using with these colors.
• During drafting, underline the sentences for each section with the appropriate color.

This technique helps students make sure nothing is left out and that everything is in the right order

Integrate Vocabulary

One of the things we know about teaching vocabulary is that it’s not enough to talk about a word once.  It needs to be seen, heard, and used several times before it is mastered.

Writing is the perfect place to incorporate some vocabulary instruction.

Choose two or three words that might be useful to students for the topic they are writing about.  Teach these words, give example sentences, and share sentences where students were able to work them in.

You can either teach the words before students write their rough draft or teach them before students revise.  You may want students to keep a record of these words in a notebook.

Use a Rubric

There’s no point in making kids guess what they’re aiming for with their writing.

Research shows that when students have criteria against which to judge their writing, they begin to internalize that criteria and use it when they write new pieces.

Try teaching critique lessons where you share a few short pieces of writing with different strengths and weaknesses and evaluate them with students using a rubric.

Talk about what made a piece successful and what could be better about it.  Invite students to use the successful techniques in their own writing.  Click on the picture to get a free copy of a personal narrative rubric that I like to use.

Peer Conferencing

Many students find working with a partner to be very motivating.

It’s important to carefully structure peer writing conferencing because it can get out of hand easily.

Set a specific goal such as helping each other check for capital letters at the beginning of every sentence, rereading to make sure each sentence makes sense, or looking for words that could be traded out for something more interesting.

Another way to structure peer conferencing is to use the “Love and a Wish” system.  Students read each other’s writing.  Then they share one thing they loved about it and one thing they wished.  For example, maybe they loved how their partner described the taste of their birthday cake and they wished there was more about the games that were played at the party.

Create an Incentive

Taking a piece of writing from the planning process all the way to a final draft is a lot of work.  Find a way to celebrate that work to keep students motivated.

A chance to share their work is motivating to students. You can build in sharing while you’re roving the classroom.  At the mid-point or the end of the lesson, have a few students share how they revised a sentence to add an interesting word or the great hook that they chose.

You can give students time to share their work with a neighbor.  This way everyone gets to share in a short amount of time.

Allow students to share writing in those 5-minute blocks of time you find every now and then when you finished something else early.

A favorite writing incentive in my classroom was the “publishing party.”  After a 5 week writing unit, each student chose their best piece and we all sat in a circle and listened to each other’s work.

At the end, we toasted to our hard work with a small cup of apple juice.  Parents would share with me that this simple celebration really motivated their child to work hard in writing so they would have something great to read to the class.

If you’re looking for resources to help you teach writing, check out the classroom-tested products HERE :

Follow my literacy board on Pinterest for more ideas!  

Author:  Hannah Braun

Hannah Braun is a former teacher with 8 years of experience in the classroom and a master's degree in early childhood education. She designs engaging, organized classroom resources for 1st-3rd grade teachers.

Just found your site and teacherspayteachers products. Love it all! Laughed out loud at your posters and comments on students. Thought I was the only one who noticed (was confused/irritated/baffled) at some of the things students think up to do with school equipment and behaviors. Nice to know we can laugh about it all! Thank you.

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10 Strategies for teaching writing skills in the classroom

• November 30, 2023

Darri Stephens

• Education Tips & Tricks , Implementation , Lessons and Ideas

Often, teachers hesitate when it comes to teaching writing because they aren’t confident in their own writing skills. Although writing is a key pillar of literacy , the artistry involved and the vast styles and approaches can make it a tad daunting to teach. However, writing is not just an essential literacy skill that is foundational to personal and professional success—at its core, it is an amazing form of self-expression and creativity. As with most fundamental skills, it is vital to encourage students to write early and often. They should not let skills, or lack of them, thwart their attempts at storytelling and communication. As writers build their toolboxes of literary devices, they can begin to craft and hone their own style and voice.

What are the key components of effective writing instruction?

By taking a scaffolded approach, teachers can begin with writing mechanics and conventions such as spelling, punctuation and capitalization, and sentence construction structure. As kids literally grab hold of the fine motor skills of gripping a pencil, they can practice their handwriting. Then, layer by layer, they can begin to focus on meaning by broadening their vocabulary, playing with word choice, adding detail, and learning how best to organize their ideas with clarity. The core of teaching writing is introducing students to the writing cycle and helping them realize the artistry of revisiting drafts of ideas.

Flocabulary instructional writing examples

Flocabulary video lessons for Reading and Writing leverage hip-hop, engaging visuals, and compelling storytelling to enhance students’ writing skills and vocabulary acquisition, making the content more relevant and memorable. Every video lesson is paired with various activities and assessments: Vocab Cards, Vocab Game, Break It Down*, Read & Respond, and Lyric Lab. Students can specifically practice their skills with Read & Respond passages, use the Quiz to check their understanding, and create rhymes using Lyric Lab .

Additionally, Flocabulary offers a creative way to infuse the fundamentals of writing instruction into your lesson planning by creating Flocabulary Mix lessons *. First, select and preview a literacy skill from those listed by grade level. Then, select a video text . The skill video provides a spoken direct set of instructions that is paired with the hip-hop video text. Your students will view both, and afterward, they can dive deeper into the newly introduced vocabulary through assessments and analysis activities designed to help them develop and practice comprehension strategies.

*Break It Down and Flocabulary Mix is only available to users with a Flocabulary Plus subscription.

New to Flocabulary? Teachers can sign up for a trial to access our lesson videos and assessment activities. Administrators can get in touch with us to learn more about unlocking the full power of Flocabulary through Flocabulary Plus.

1. Keep reading

Author Stephen King claims in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft , “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” Expose students to all genres of literature, all types of authors, and instructional writing examples. As they begin to identify their favorites, pepper them with questions as to why. In English language arts classes, you can also challenge them to write in a style similar to a chosen author—imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (as they develop their own greatness, that is).

Find a plethora of K-12 video lessons in our Language Arts section, including stories, literature, and informational texts. These video lessons are perfect for covering classic stories to provide students extra context for their reading comprehension or to help them learn more reading strategies they can apply daily.

Explore these videos to support reading in your classroom:

• Reading & Writing : Lessons on genres, figurative language, story structures and elements, and more.
• Literature : Lessons and summaries of classical literature and Flocabulary stories for students.
• Informational Text : Lessons and adaptations of non-fiction stories and informational texts.

2. Practice storytelling

Almost all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Students need to practice telling stories, whether in writing or verbally, to grasp the idea of sequencing events and the basics of story elements. Retelling stories provides explicit instruction for honing summarization skills (which is not an easy skill for any age!). For an added challenge, give students bookends to work within, such as a character or time limit—you can use social media posts as an example with Twitter/X’s 280-character limit, TikTok’s 90-second limit, or IG Story’s 60-second limit.

Underscore comprehension strategies using skill videos for Flocabulary Mixes. Here are some examples of lessons to use across grade levels:

• Retelling Stories (Grades K-1)
• Identifying the Main Topic (Grade 2)
• Author’s Purpose (Grade 3)
• Finding the Main Idea (Grades 3-5)
• Summarizing (Grades 4-8)

*Skill videos and Flocabulary Mix are only available to users with a Flocabulary Plus subscription .

3. Build vocabulary

It sounds simple enough, but help your students be aware of words to boost vocabulary acquisition . Highlight when others make a conscious word choice. Encourage them to play with words. As babies begin to acquire vocabulary, they build a lexicon for their primary language. This lexical development continues as learners build a sense of meanings and form and how to use words in relationship with one another. As a teacher, I encouraged my students to avoid bland “four-letter words” such as SAID or GOOD. You can encourage students to keep personal dictionaries, where they make note of new words or those that intrigue them. A thesaurus can be a budding writer’s best ally in written work! 

Explore our 5 essential strategies to teach vocabulary to understand the vital role of vocabulary acquisition as a valuable tool to enhance students’ language depth and writing abilities. Using strategies like multiple exposures and structured models such as the Frayer model, explore the importance of using and applying words creatively—a skill essential for effective writing.

4. Don’t forget the technical

While creative writing can help capture the soul and talent of young authors, they also can begin to sharpen their technical writing skills for expository and persuasive writing. Students can learn effective writing strategies for informational pieces such as essays, newsworthy articles, op-eds, advertisements, debates, and research reports. Such writing strategies teach students that there are different types of writing for different purposes: descriptive, narrative, expository, and persuasive.

Here are some lessons you can use:

• Main Idea (Grades K-6)
• Paragraph Writing (Grades 2-5)
• Persuasive Language (Grades 3-8)
• The Writing Process (Grades 5-12)
• The Five Paragraph Essay (Grades 5-12)

5. Build up toolboxes

As students amass strategies and analyze best practices in writing, they can begin to develop their own writer’s toolbox. These toolboxes can catalog story elements such as plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict. Students can add definitions and examples of literary and poetic devices such as irony , alliteration, metaphors , hyperbole, and oxymoron … just to name a few. Such techniques will embolden them to use symbolism and figurative language to differentiate their prose and their writing from others. Students will delight in the sophistication they can bring to their writing by not only understanding but also employing such devices.

Showcase examples for their toolboxes by using these lessons:

• Topic Sentences (Grades 2-5)
• Conflict (Grades 5 to 8)
• Five Elements of a Story (Grades 3-12)
• Onomatopoeia (Grades 3-5)
• Similes & Metaphors (Grades 3-8)
• Irony (Grades 6-12)

6. Go around the writing cycle

Early in elementary school, many teachers introduce the concept of the writing cycle, which typically varies from five to seven stages. However, all versions of the writing cycle depict the idea that the process of writing is continuous and that high-quality writing benefits from being revisited repeatedly. Pre-writing begins with seed ideas that take shape with graphic organizers or outlines. Students write multiple drafts, getting their ideas down on paper. Revising is when they continue to add or subtract pieces to refine their work. And then editing is when the more mechanical aspects of writing are revisited and polished by the author or peer reviewers. Often, the most challenging part of the writing cycle is knowing when you’re done and ready to share and celebrate via publication.

During the writing cycle, encourage students to go back and revise their writing for clarity—which often means revisiting grammar. Flocabulary has tons of video lessons on grammar, including the following:

• Commas (Grades 1-8)
• Nouns (Grades K-3)
• Run-On Sentences (Grades 4-6)
• Synonyms & Antonyms (Grades 2-8)
• Parts of Speech (Grades 2-8)

7. Differ your point of view

Help students realize that writing is quite personal and often is based on an author’s experiences and biases (recognized or not). Challenge them to not only identify the point of view but also try seeing the story from another person’s perspective. Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs is a wonderful way to illustrate this for young readers and writers. Similarly, Gregory Maguire has found success in novels—and on stage—with his unique perspectives in books such as Wicked .

Teach about point of view using the following video lessons:

• Point of View (Grades 3-12)
• Nearpod Original*: Point of View (Grades 3-5)
• Skill video*: Identifying Point of View (Grade 4)
• Skill video*: Differing Perspectives (Grade 7)

*Skill videos and Nearpod Originals are only available to users with a Flocabulary Plus subscription .

8. Play with word choice and structure

Playing with words comes down to personal word choice as well as word structure. Challenge your students to take a simple phrase such as “The sky is blue” and mold it into something more by toying with word selection and placement. Remind students to have fun with writing—sometimes, that may mean abandoning conventions such as spelling and punctuation in a first draft. Let them “word vomit” and then go back and revise the piece with conventions that make it more readable by others. Don’t let convention get in the way of creativity.

Here are some lessons you can use in your classroom to teach about word choice, structure, and figurative language:

• Word Choice (Grades 5-12)
• Text Structure (Grades 3-8)
• Skill video: Author’s Word Choice (Grades 6-8)
• Skill video: Analyzing Word Choice (Grades 9-12)

9. Invoke sensory details

Many teachers encourage their students to “show, don’t tell” in their writing. Students can lean on their five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—to bring their writing alive with sensory details. I often ask kids to use their “mind’s eye” to share details that would, in turn, awaken their reader’s mind’s eye. We know how important an active imagination is, and we should encourage kids to sharpen theirs and not dull it with age.

“Young human beings need exercises in imagination as they need exercise in all the basic skills of life, bodily and mental: for growth, for health, for competence, for joy,” author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote. “This need continues as long as the mind is alive.” KQED

Encourage students of all ages to use descriptive and figurative language using these lessons:

• Using Descriptive Language (Grades 3-12)
• Figurative Language (Grades 5-12)

10. Lean into technology

There are so many dynamics to learning how to write, but technology can ease some of the common obstacles. If a child struggles with penmanship, keep working on those fine motor skills but give him a keyboard to learn how to type early. Don’t let a pencil grip get in the way of words and ideas flowing. Similarly, assistive and adaptive technologies can turn voice recording into text to encourage the art of storytelling. Aids like spelling and grammar checker software can provide tips and tricks that students can begin to internalize over time.

Use Flocabulary for writing instruction

If you grapple with how to teach writing skills, start by seeking out best practices in writing instruction. Flocabulary has a clear scope and sequence by grade level to begin building those foundational writing and research skills. Teaching writing can be a rewarding endeavor, as students will relish the agency and independence of finding their own voice and having a channel for true self-expression. With a focus on 21st-century learning skills, creativity, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration all come when students put pen to paper or fingers to a keyboard.

Darri Stephens is a dedicated LX (learning experience) designer, passionate about creating quality content and programs for kids, families, and educators. With MAs in Education from both Harvard and Stanford, and work experience at best-in-class ed tech organizations including Wonder Workshop, Nickelodeon, and Common Sense Education, she is steeped in the design thinking process and committed to agile and iterative project management, which has resulted in multi-award-winning programs and products.

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5 High-Impact Writing Strategies for the Elementary Grades

Simple, effective exercises can help elementary students develop the foundational writing skills they need for their academic journey.

When considering writing as part of the instructional day, teachers may think only of the type of writing where students engage in storytelling or informational pieces. While the ability to leverage student choice and produce fiction and nonfiction text is beneficial for all grade levels, it’s important to consider how writing can be incorporated and layered across all content areas, as well as develop the deep foundational understanding to prepare young writers for authoring texts.

For us as teachers, it’s vital that we share a common language and understanding about the types of high-impact writing strategies that students can engage in and how to effectively implement them in the classroom. 

1. Handwriting in the Early Grades

In the digital age, prioritizing handwriting education during phonics instruction remains instrumental in nurturing well-rounded learners and sets them up for success when more stamina is required of them. The tactile experience of handwriting establishes a profound connection between language and sensory perception, contributing increased cognitive development .

Teachers can adopt a common path of movement language (language used to describe how to form the letters) when teaching the letters. In addition to that, providing students with multisensory ways of forming the letters helps create a strong understanding of the letters’ features.

A practical example of this type of instruction is having students trace a lowercase a in a tray full of salt, repeating the path of movement language, “over, around, down.” Then, students practice writing the letter using a pencil or dry erase marker. As the teacher models the directionality, it’s important to ensure that students know what “over,” “around,” and “down” mean and look like and that the teacher is using on-the-spot intervention for correction.

2. Dictated Sentences

Utilizing dictated sentences in elementary phonics instruction holds profound importance in nurturing early literacy skills. This strategy serves as a powerful bridge between decoding individual phonemes and comprehending them within a meaningful context. 

For example, in a phonics lesson where students are practicing decoding and spelling words with a short i vowel and have practiced reading the high-frequency words they and the , the teacher may end the lesson with students writing the dictated sentence, ”They will fill the big bin with wigs.”

This method encourages the application of phonics knowledge in real-word scenarios, promoting fluency and automaticity. In addition, dictated sentences provide a valuable opportunity for students to hone their listening skills, enhancing their ability to discern and reproduce distinct phonetic elements accurately and to authentically apply irregularly spelled high-frequency words in context. This practice benefits students of any grade level working on phonics skills.

3. Writing to Read

Another foundational type of writing that prepares students for more demanding types of writing in later grades is writing to read. This is an interactive approach to early writing instruction where the teacher models early literacy and print concepts starting as early as prekindergarten through early kindergarten. Through collaboration with the students, the teacher models drawing pictures and sentence creation.

Teachers can start by engaging students in a conversation around an event in a book or nursery rhyme they read together. Then, the teacher offers a prompt: “In the story, the characters went to play at the park. That gives me an idea for a story. What kinds of things do you like to do at the park?” Students can share multiple ideas for the story, and the teacher chooses one to model. 

While the teacher explicitly models drawing and develops a sentence about the drawing, the students offer ideas on where to start writing, count the words in the story, identify the sounds they hear as the teacher spells out each word, and notice where spaces will occur. The more that students engage in this type of instruction, the more responsibility we can hand over to them, and they can write the story along with us. As students are given more opportunities to apply early writing principles and rereading strategies, they begin to understand the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing.

4. Reading to Write

When the foundations for early writing have been established, students can quickly move into another layer of high-impact writing, which is writing about the texts that they’re reading. 

Even starting in kindergarten, encouraging students to write and/or draw in response to reading across multiple content areas is a valuable strategy that helps deepen comprehension and understanding of a particular topic, as explored in Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos’s book Teaching for Deep Comprehension .

These “writing about the reading” prompts require students to analyze, synthesize, and connect ideas, fostering a deeper understanding of the material. For example, if first-grade students are working on story elements, after reading a story, a student might write, “The character in the story is a bear who lives in the forest. The problem in the story is that he is sad, but he solves his problem when he learns to be happy.” 

This expression encapsulates comprehension, language reinforcement, and academic vocabulary. As students progress through grade levels upward to 12th grade, the scaffold of giving the students a prompt for writing about the text should decrease as they develop enough self-regulation to write about their own thinking.

5. Writing About Learning

Similar to reading to write, this strategy is solely focused on writing about what the student has learned, why the learning is important, and when to use the learning. This type of writing can happen as early as kindergarten, but in a highly scaffolded manner that mostly focuses on articulating why the learning is important.

Students up to 12th grade can benefit from writing about their learning because it keeps the purpose of what they’re learning in various content areas relevant and promotes quick retrieval of the information.

This strategy also promotes metacognition , because it helps learners organize their thoughts and reflect on their learning process. For instance, a second-grade class could collaboratively study the nature of bees in a nonfiction text. Then, because the teacher focuses on the skill of identifying and explaining main ideas and details, a student may write, “I learned the main idea by using headings and key details. Knowing main ideas helps us understand the most important information in a text.”

Strategies for Teaching Writing

Practical, Teacher-Tested Ways to Improve Your Students' Writing

• Classroom Organization
• Reading Strategies
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• Secondary Education
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• Homeschooling
• B.A., Sociology, University of California Los Angeles

One of our most important tasks has is to introduce their young students to the written language and how to use it creatively and effectively in order to communicate. Whether you teach primary or upper elementary grades, your administrator is counting on you to teach your students to quantifiably improve in writing this school year. Here are a few effective teaching strategies to try out in your classroom -- implement a few or try them all.

1. Writing Instruction Doesn't Have To Be Intimidating -- For You Or The Students

Many educators find teaching writing a real challenge. Sure there are all the rules of grammar and punctuation , but outside of those boundaries, there are as many stories to be told as there are people in the world. How do we corral our students' enthusiasm and creative minds so that their writing is coherent, engaging, and purposeful?

2. A Strong Beginning Is Crucial --Then Move Onto The Basics

Start by teaching your students how to write a strong beginning to their stories. With this skill in hand, your students will then be ready to learn about the importance of word choice and avoiding boring, flat, overused words.

3. More Advanced Descriptive Techniques Don't Have To Be Hard To Teach

Even the youngest elementary school students will enjoy trying their hand at tongue twisters. And what do tongue twisters have to do with writing? Well, it's an easy way to introduce the concept of alliteration .

Achoo! Slam! Kaboom! Not only do children love sound effects, but they come to the classroom with a strong familiarity with this subject. Sound effects add power and imagery to writing, and not to mention it's easy to teach students how to appropriately use this skill to kick their writing up a notch.

4. Writing Applications You Might Not Have Considered

Obviously, writing enters into all aspects of human life, especially nowadays in the age of the Internet and email. Use a pen pal program to teach your students how to effectively communicate with their peers in letter format. It's an invaluable skill and a dying art. Or, try practice letter-writing and compile weekly parent newsletters all in one fell swoop! That's another time-saver that practices writing skills at the same time.

Another important aspect of language arts is oral communication and listening skills. Through this easy and fun impromptu speeches lesson, your students will write a speech, perform it out loud, and practice listening to each other.

5. A Well-Rounded Writing Curriculum Is Within Your Grasp

These real life, classroom-tested writing lessons are proven, fun, and easy-to-implement. With practice and diligence, you will watch your students' writing soar and improve daily.

Edited by  Janelle Cox

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Home Blog Inspiring Educators Teaching Reading and Writing with a Smartboard

March 20th, 2024 by Angélique Toque

Teaching Reading and Writing with a Smartboard

Table of Contents

At the core of a child’s academic development is their literacy level. Forming a solid baseline knowledge of reading and writing is one of the most important things a teacher can do. However, it’s possible to forget how challenging learning to read and write for the first time can be. After all, teachers have spent a large part of their training and careers internalizing much of the process.

Unlike mathematics or the sciences, breaking reading and writing down into clear and logical steps is not always easy. Many educators fall into the trap of assigning reading and writing for homework too early. Competent literacy skills are built in the classroom and there are a number of strategies educators can use to teach these essential skills.

5 Strategies for Teaching Reading and Writing with a Smartboard/Digital Whiteboard

With the introduction of digital whiteboards, making learning to read and write appealing and engaging has never been easier. Below, we’ve suggested 5 strategies that will help to enhance and direct your reading and writing lessons with a smartboard. However, many of the ideas discussed below can be applied to classrooms without them.

1. Think about Phonemes and Phonics

Understanding how to read and write an alphabetic language via the relationships between spoken sounds of the language, or phonemes, is one of the basic building blocks of literacy teaching. Talking always comes before reading, so phonemic awareness in the classroom is essential. With the aid of a digital whiteboard, you can easily create interactive games that will heighten a student’s phonemic understanding and teach critical phonic skills.

With Explain Everything’s clipart library , you could create a set of image pairs to help students identify rhyming words, gather a set of images that need to be organized into beginning or end sounds, or create recordings of certain words and get your classroom to write and spell the word they hear. Interactive teaching technology can help children to grasp spelling, prefixes, and suffixes more quickly and efficiently.  

2. Get Creative

Creative writing is one of the best ways to engage students in the practice of writing. Not only does it give them the chance to express themselves and connect the experience of writing with their own personal interests, but it also helps them to order and structure their thinking and critical faculties. Guided by a teaching professional, creative writing offers students the opportunity to expand their vocabulary and practice spelling, experiment with new sentence structures, and apply grammar correctly.

With a digital whiteboard, one strategy for guided and effective creative writing is to display a collection of images, words, and grammatical symbols, and task the classroom with creating a short story with these elements. Equally, short creative writing sessions where students write a response to an image, video, or animation, are an ideal way to fill spaces between lessons and practice vital literacy skills.

Remember, reading and writing complement each other, so, if possible, give students the chance to write about a text that they’re currently studying.

3. Active Vocabulary Learning

Giving students the chance to actively build their vocabulary, as opposed to passively learning new words, will allow them to progress their reading and writing skills more quickly. There are a number of different strategies that can make the process of learning a new word or phrase more active and engaging. In today’s digital world, there’s no need to break out a dictionary and transcribe definitions.

A staple of teaching vocabulary today is collaborative writing.In groups or as a classroom, you can write something together, allowing you to model the writing process towards using new words. You can equally use your smartboard as a kind of mural or graffiti wall. You can post words in one part and ask the class to contribute synonyms on the other side.

For a truly interactive vocabulary lesson, you could even get your students to record short videos about a new word they’ve found and then present them to your class as a small movie on your smartboard.

4. Fluent Reading

Many teachers aim to make their students “fluent” readers, who read in the same way they speak and speak in the same way they read. This also means that a pupil can read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. The only sure way to do this is to give your students multiple opportunities to read and be exposed to what fluency sounds like.

Traditionally, this might involve a teacher reading to their students, or having the classroom take turns in reading short passages. As good as this is, digital whiteboard technology can help make this more engaging. For example, an activity could involve visualizing where to put emphasis in sentences, taking audio recordings of students reading a passage and correcting it, or providing the classroom with a few sentences that have no punctuation and letting them decide what punctuation to use to create emphasis.

5. Visualizing Reading Comprehension

Comprehension and the task of processing a text can be a difficult thing to learn. Re-reading, reflecting, and marking up a text is not something that comes naturally to most students; it often requires a lot of practice. A good way to teach comprehension is to physically draw diagrams (like Venn diagrams of plot points or character traits) and annotate a chosen document with concise notes.

This can be done easily with Explain Everything’s collaborative whiteboard space, whether it’s on the student’s own device or collectively on the smartboard in the classroom. You can add colors and create diagrams with just a few clicks.

Conclusions

Integrating smartboard technology into the teaching of reading and writing opens up a realm of possibilities to enhance students’ literacy skills in an engaging and effective manner. The five strategies outlined—emphasizing phonemes and phonics, fostering creativity in writing, actively expanding vocabulary, promoting fluent reading, and visualizing comprehension—demonstrate the versatility and transformative impact of digital whiteboards in the classroom. By adopting these strategies, educators and teachers can create dynamic and interactive lessons that not only make the learning process enjoyable but also lay a solid foundation for students’ literacy development. Contact us today to see how Explain Everything can help enhance students’ learning experiences.

FAQs for Teaching Reading and Writing with a Smartboard/Digital Whiteboard

Reading and Writing Learning Styles? There are a number of different reading and writing learning styles. A read-and-write learner will prefer to use notes, textbooks, and class handouts to learn. They will also make use of other reference materials like dictionaries and benefit from repeatedly rewriting notes from classes.