year 7 english creative writing

English Teaching Resources

Creative writing in Year 7

There is a great resource on Teachit ( I believe), written by Fran Nantongwe called “Quest for the cure”.  I got a copy a while ago through a colleague at a NATE conference and love using it in Year 7.

The idea is that the class develop a novel through pieces of creative writing – all transactional and with a particular focus – persuasive, descriptive etc.

It is brilliant and Fran is a star for developing so much.  I attach my PowerPoint for teaching the module, a few of the resources I use to help the students to write and 2 booklets of work from this Year’s Year 7s.

7b zebulon doc

7NV ZEBULON COMPOSITE

Peel Zebulon intro

mayor’s speech Persuade

Zebulon Project Character Profile

Y7 Diary Writing

The Public Execution – Kite runner extract

persuasion_Atticus Finch (screenplay)

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Part 8: How to Write a Creative in Years 7 & 8

Guide Chapters

• 1. Knowledge
• 2. Reading skills
• 3. Comprehension
• 4. Textual analysis
• 5. Planning responses
• 6. Writing persuasively & informatively
• 7. Common writing mistakes
• 8. How to write creatives
• 9. Answering comprehension questions
• 10. Reflection
• 11. How do techniques convey meaning

How to write a creative in Years 7 & 8?

Are you unsure of how to write a creative piece? Don’t worry! In this post, we will go through all the necessary details to write a creative. In this article, we’re going to walk you through how to write, edit, and refine your creative.

What is in this article?

In this article, we are going to look at:

What is creative writing?

What should you write about.

• Skills that your child needs for creative writing

Four pillars of narrative

• How do you write a creative?

Drafting and editing skills

How can my child improve these skills.

Creative writing is a fictional piece of writing that you will come across in high school. It is an important skill that you need to master.

In Part 4 of the Beginner’s Guide to Year 7 & 8 English , we went through textual analysis and how to analyse techniques in texts.

Now, we have to put this knowledge into practice, and write a creative piece that uses techniques to create meaning!

A piece of fictional writing is something that is made up. This means that you can create a crazy sci-fi world or make it as realistic as possible.

There are endless possibilities!

However, some ideas will work better than others.

It is always a good idea to write about something you know well. This includes situations that are similar to your experiences or something you feel strongly about.

This will make your work seem more authentic.

How do you come up with ideas?

Sometimes, it’s hard to come up with an idea to write about.

This is why you need to brainstorm!

Get a notebook where you can jot down interesting events or conversations you see and hear everyday or even random thoughts that pop into your head.

These notes will give you inspiration for a storyline when you need to write creatively. By doing this, you can keep track of all possible storylines that you can use for your creative writing.

You should also brainstorm possible stories before you start writing. This includes coming up with new ideas or fleshing out old ones.

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Skills that you need for creative writing

Matrix students are taught the skills to write creatively. It is very different from persuasive writing.

This means that there is a specific set of skills that your child needs to develop to write a brilliant creative piece.

1. Using techniques

In high school, you are taught to analyse texts by unpacking it, identifying techniques and finding the meaning created.

Now, you need to apply that skill into creative writing. However, instead of analysing techniques, you need to use the techniques to create meaning in your story.

There are a few ways that you can do this:

1A. Holistic techniques

A holistic technique is a technique that runs through the course of the text, like motifs and extended metaphors.

They not only make your writing seem tied together, but it creates a meaning that is woven throughout your response.

This makes your writing stronger.

Let’s say that your story is about a girl who is moving in to her grandma’s house. You can use butterflies as a motif because they symbolise change. A butterfly can be seen flying past her, she might be doodling a butterfly into her notebook or her grandma might have paintings of butterflies.

When readers begin to notice the consistent appearance of butterflies, they are reminded of the theme of change and subsequently, the message you want to convey.

This is just an example of using a holistic technique in your responses.

1B. Literary devices 

Literary devices are any technique that creates meaning in a text.

This includes symbolism , metaphors , similes, repetition and onomatopoeia…

You need to regularly use these in your creative writing because they help convey meaning in a more implicit way. But be careful not to overdo it!

When we compare these two sentences, we can see why literary devices are so important in creative writing.

“ He ate his food because he was hungry .”

“ He ate his food like a bear who hasn’t eaten in months .”

The second sentence conveys a stronger vivid imagery that highlights the extent of the boys hunger.

This is why you need to use literary devices in your creative writing. It does a better job at conveying meaning.

1C. Sentence types

Often, people don’t realise the significance of sentence types in creating meaning in creative writings.

A variety of simple, compound and complex sentences are necessary to ensure that your writing doesn’t drag on and sound boring.

People like change. So you need to give it to them.

See how boring this sounds.

“The sky was a baby blue and the grass was a bright green. Sally was walking in the park and saw a dog. She started patting the dog but the dog licked her. Her hand drew back because she was surprised. Sally laughed and started patting the dog again.” 

Now, let’s use a variety of sentence types to write this again.

“ The sky was a baby blue. The grass was a bright green. Sally was walking in the park and saw a dog. She started patting the dog but the dog licked her. Her hand drew back. She was surprised. But, Sally laughed and started patting the dog again.”

Also, different sentence types serve different purposes.

In very tense or suspenseful moments, simple sentences are used to create a sense of urgency. Compound or complex sentences are better for descriptions. You can use different sentence types to create different atmospheres.

2. Show, don’t tell

Showing is painting an image to convey what is happening, whereas, telling is simply stating the events.

It’s important that you  show what is happening because readers are able to experience the story.

So, how do you do this?

• Describe the character’s actions or thoughts
• Describe characteristics of the setting, characters or situation.
• Use dialogue
• Write using any of the five senses to describe

Here is an example.

“She was cold.”

“ She was shivering as she let out an icy breath .”

So, which one conveys a stronger image?

3. Correct tense usage

Writing with mixed tenses is a major issue in student’s creatives.

Their story might start with past tense, but every few paragraphs, they might have a sentence or two that’s written in present or future tense. This will confuse your readers.

This occurs more commonly than you think.

It’s important to realise this problem and fix it when you proofread your work.

There are four main elements of narrative you need to consider for your piece of short fiction:

• Characterisation

Without these, your readers will struggle to find your narrative compelling. Let’s see what you need to consider when developing these elements.

You need to develop a character before you start writing. This includes knowing:

• Their personality
• Where they live
• What time period are they living in
• What is their relationship to the other characters
• Who their friends and family are

You need to make sure that your character is 3-dimensional. To do this, you can flesh out some other facts about them. Remember, these do not need to be mentioned in the story unless it aids the plot or necessary for characterisation.

• Favourite food, TV show, colour…
• What they look like
• Favourite place to go when they’re sad or angry
• Clothing style

This might seem obvious, but sometimes you end up writing stories without any major complications. It is important that you have an interesting and original plot for your creative writing.

To do this, you must make sure of two things:

1. Have a complication

This itself is a problem.

Your story will sound boring and your readers will lose interest.

Make sure that your characters are faced with obstacles and experience some changes. This will make your plot more entertaining and meaningful.

2. Avoid cliches

Cliches are phrases and ideas that are over-used and unoriginal.

This is why it’s important that you don’t use them in your stories.

Cliches make your story lack creativeness and even lazy.

Imagine reading “Her hair stood on ends” in every story. It will become boring!

This is why it’s important that you avoid cliche phrases and cliche plots like parents dying in a car crash.

Setting might seem unimportant, but it actually plays a large role in developing your story.

This is why you need to ensure that you picked the right setting for your story instead of randomly writing about one.

• Certain settings create mood and atmosphere –  When you create a mood or atmosphere, you are giving insight into what will happen in your story. For example, if you wrote about an abandoned house and the cold at night, readers will begin to feel scared and anticipate a bad event. Whereas, if you wrote about a sunflower field, with the bright sun and animal-shaped clouds, the reader will feel happy and enlightened. Make sure you use setting to your advantage.
• You need to stick to the fact  – When you write about a particular setting, you need to make sure that it is historically accurate. You cannot say that your character was driving a BMW during the Medieval period, because cars didn’t exist during that time! Make sure that you  research enough about the context to make sure that your writing is credible. Even if it is set in 2019, Sydney, Australia.

Dialogue is the narrative element that students struggle with the most. Some students often overlook the importance of using dialogue in creative writing. Others are scared by dialogue.

And, to be honest, getting dialogue right is hard. It takes practice.

However, it’s important that you use at least one piece of dialogue in your stories because it shows the marker your ability to write a wide range of sentence types.

Why is dialogue important?

Dialogue lets you:

• Develops characterisation and advance the plot
• Show how characters get along
• Portray what characters are concerned about
• Share information from one character to another
• Comment on characters’ perspectives on their situations

So, what is the common issue that students come across when they are writing it.

Student’s often write dialogue that serve no purpose.

It needs to be meaningful. Dialogue either has to advance the plot or develop characterisation. We don’t want filler sentences like, “ Hi, how are you ?” or words like “ um ” and “ ah “, unless they are serving a purpose.

Like, “ Watch out !” Simon yelled as the ball flew towards Amelie.

Now you know what to include in your narrative, we need to look at how to write it.

How do you write a creative piece?

In Part 5 of this Guide , we went through the planning process for planning creatives. Let’s quickly recap:

This means that you should:

• Create a rough outline of the events in your story
• Create character profiles for your important characters
• Research about the context you are writing about

If you need a refresher, here are a couple of scaffold’s you could use for writing a creative:

No one’s first draft is perfect.

This is just an opportunity for you to get all of your ideas into sentences.

Don’t overthink. Just write!

You can figure out what parts of the plot you like or didn’t like or what in the story works and didn’t.

Give it a few days before you return to your draft. Then it’s editing time!

Take this time to reword sentences and add techniques to your story.

Sometimes, you might need to rewrite whole paragraphs.

But all these changes will just make your story technically stronger.

Ask someone to read over your work.

It can be a school teacher, Matrix tutor, or even your parents.

This is a great opportunity to have a second opinion on your writing. Sometimes, they will point out grammatical errors and other times, they might even ask you to change your ideas.

The criticism can hurt, but remember it is about your work and not you.

Instead, think of it as a chance to make your work better.

More drafting

It’s time to take the feedback and write another draft.

It is up to you to decide which feedback is useful and incorporate it.

You can draft and edit as many times as you want until you are happy with the result.

After numerous drafts and edits, you will produce a version that you’re happy with.

It is important that you remember to proofread it!

This is where you go back and fix any small grammatical or punctuation errors.

What are drafting and editing?

Drafting is putting your ideas into words and writing it down.

This is not meant to be a perfect piece of writing because you are meant to go back and edit it!

Editing is when you revise over what you have written and fix it to make it better.

This includes fixing grammatical and punctuation errors, rewording sentences, rewriting whole paragraphs, and even rewriting whole portions to make it technically stronger.

Remember! When you write, you are writing for your audience, not just yourself!

What does drafting and editing involve?

To draft your creative, you should:

• Go over your plan. Refresh yourself on your plots, characters, themes and anything else that is necessary for your story.
• Just start writing! Don’t be afraid to start it! This is your chance to get all of your ideas onto paper. You will have the chance to make it sound perfect later.
• Don’t stop. It’s important that you keep your writing flow going. Don’t stop to re-read your work and fix it. And don’t worry if your sentence doesn’t sound good.
• If you get stuck, start writing another part.  Don’t sit and waste half an hour trying to formulate your sentence. Just leave a space to remind yourself to go back, and start writing another part.

To edit your response, you should:

• Look for grammatical and punctuation errors and fix them.
• Reword or rewrite sentences and paragraphs if you don’t like them. This is your chance to make everything sound technically stronger.
• Make sure the story flows. If something doesn’t make sense, change it or take it out! This sometimes means that you have to re-structure your whole story.
• Add in more techniques. When you are drafting, you don’t really have time to focus on techniques. Use this as a chance to insert some techniques, whether it be a recurring motif throughout the story or some metaphors or symbolic objects.

As you can see, it is quite a lengthy process. But following these steps will ensure that you write the strongest story possible.

How to encourage your child to draft and edit their work regularly

Often, students write one draft and just settle with it. This is not good.

You should always try to encourage your child to draft and edit their work so they can produce the best possible creative.

Here are some tips:

• Ask them questions about their story.  This includes questions about their plot, characters and what they want to tell the audience. Doing this will give them a chance to think more deeply about their creative writing before they start writing.
• Encourage them to write regularly about everything. Every few days, your child should write a few sentences or paragraphs about anything. This will help them get over their perfectionism and improve their drafting skills.
• Create a checklist of the things they should be searching in their work to edit. This includes repeated words, punctuation errors and whether or not the sentence flows.
• If they struggle to concentrate on their computers, have them print out their creative with double spacing and edit it with a pen . This way, they can eliminate distractions and see their work holistically.

Writing creatively is quite a tricky process to master. This is why it is important that you encourage your child to develop these skills early on in high school.

Here are some tips that can help your child improve their creative writing.

• Writing in a notebook regularly – Try to encourage your child to write in their notebook every few days. This can range from short stories to paragraphs about their day or how they feel or even a few sentences describing an object. Write about everything. This is a chance to practice writing skills, generate original ideas and develop effective sentences that can be used again in their stories.
• Encourage them to work with friends – There are benefits when you work with your friends. Firstly, they can edit your work and suggest improvements. This will ensure that your child is consistently improving their creative writing to its best possible state. Secondly, when you edit someone else’s work, you pick out errors and areas for improvement. By perfecting this skill, you are then able to apply it to your own work.
• Keep practising – It’s important that your child continually writes creatively, drafts and edits their work all throughout high school to continually improve. Practice makes perfect.

Do you know how to ace comprehension questions?

Comprehension questions are an inescapable part of English. In our next article, we’re going to show you how to ace your comprehension section, every time.

Part 9: How To Answer Comprehension Questions

© Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au, 2023. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Matrix Education and www.matrix.edu.au with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Free Printable Creative Writing Worksheets for 7th Year

Creative Writing worksheets for Year 7 Reading & Writing teachers! Discover a vast collection of free printable resources to inspire your students and enhance their learning experience.

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Explore printable Creative Writing worksheets for 7th Year

Creative Writing worksheets for Year 7 are an essential tool for teachers who want to help their students develop their reading and writing skills. These worksheets focus on various aspects of writing, such as fiction writing, and are designed to engage and challenge students in a way that is both enjoyable and educational. By incorporating these worksheets into their lesson plans, teachers can provide their students with a solid foundation in reading and writing, which will serve them well as they progress through their academic careers. Furthermore, these worksheets can be easily adapted to suit the needs of individual students, ensuring that every learner has the opportunity to reach their full potential in the realm of writing.

Quizizz is an excellent resource for teachers looking to supplement their Creative Writing worksheets for Year 7 with engaging and interactive activities. This platform offers a wide range of quizzes and games that can help students improve their reading and writing skills, as well as their overall understanding of fiction writing. Teachers can choose from a vast library of pre-made quizzes or create their own to suit the specific needs of their students. By incorporating Quizizz into their lesson plans, teachers can provide a more dynamic and interactive learning experience for their students, which can ultimately lead to greater success in the development of their reading and writing abilities.

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Year 7 English worksheets – Jungle descriptive writing lesson plan and resources

PDF worksheets and PowerPoint

Use these Year 7 English worksheets, teacher notes and PowerPoint to help pupils get to grips with descriptive writing .

Descriptive writing is an important and enjoyable aspect of English. These free downloadable worksheets are perfect for KS3 English lessons and cover two sessions of content.

Use the descriptive text, themed around the jungle, as a prompt for descriptive writing. The accompanying resources will help students develop their own creative writing and give them the opportunity to practise:

• comprehension
• analysing writers’ methods

The resources will also expose pupils to a wide range of descriptive writing techniques. They’ll learn how to use texts as prompts for writing.

Contents of Year 7 English worksheets pack

• ‘The Jungle’ text with vocabulary definitions
• PowerPoint teaching slides
• Comprehension worksheets (questions and answers)
• Descriptive writing match-up activity sheet
• Planning sheet for writing task

In the first session pupils will read the jungle-themed descriptive writing text, before trying a descriptive writing match-up activity. This involves matching techniques and descriptions before finding examples from the text.

Next pupils can fill out the comprehension questions worksheet, using answers from the text to justify their answers.

Pupils will then annotate a section of the text, identifying writing techniques and the effects these create.

Now it’s time to think about whether or not the writer has created a vivid and exciting description of the jungle, before writing their own What How Why paragraph about it. A model answer and scaffolding is provided in the download to help.

In the final session students will recap the descriptive writing techniques you talked about last session before planning their own descriptive writing piece. They can use the included planning sheet to help them do this.

National curriculum objectives

• Develop an appreciation and love of reading, and read increasingly challenging material
• Read high-quality works from English literature, both pre-1914 and contemporary, including prose, poetry and drama
• Choose and read books independently for challenge, interest and enjoyment
• Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries
• Check understanding to make sure that what they have read makes sense
• Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, presents meaning
• Study setting, plot and characterisation, and the effects of these
• Write accurately, fluently, effectively and at length for pleasure and information through stories, scripts, poetry and other imaginative writing

Bhamika Bhudia ( @MissMika_Eng ) is a head of English at a mixed comprehensive secondary school in London. You can also download Year 8 English worksheets from Bhamika. We also have more descriptive writing lesson ideas and KS3 creative writing resources  for teaching plot and setting.

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English KS3 KS4 Halloween Themed writing task. Use a picture stimulus to write a creepy description

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

24 October 2024

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This resource has been created for Halloween themed lessons. Students are given a simplified and broken-down way of accessing a writing task. The first part poses language activities looking at prepositions and how to use them. The second part of the lesson looks at vocabulary building, writing skills and punctuation. The picture is suitably Gothic, creepy, supernatural and gives students plenty of material to work on. This lesson is suitable for KS3 students, but it can easily be adapted to suit KS4 students, particularly those who are less able.

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