fun writing assignments for high school

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Set your story at a wedding reception, where a group of high school friends are meeting for the first time in years., write a story about an unconventional teacher., what was the last daydream that you dreamt while in class (be honest.) turn that into a short story..

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Write a letter to your middle school self. What would you want them to know?

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The best writing prompts for high school

Ah, high school. The birthplace of future geniuses, the setting of a million Young Adult books — and the cutting ground of many a brilliant young author. Writing in the classroom is often the best outlet of creativity for kids, and what better way to get your students excited about it than through creative writing prompts for high school students?

Whether you use journal prompts or story ideas to kickstart your high school student’s imagination, writing prompts are sure to help broaden their thinking, sharpen their writing skills, record their thoughts, and get them to engage with the world around them.

If you're looking to cut to the chase, here's a top ten list of writing prompts for high school students:

In the form of diary/ journal entries, write about someone who's just experienced a big "first."
Just then, your phone rings. It's your friend and they have some interesting news...
Write a short story where the protagonist has a doppelgänger.
Write a story about a misunderstanding.
Write a story about a strange family tradition, with at least two characters from the family narrating in the course of the story.
Write a story about someone who would be described, above all else, as: kind.
Write a story that centers on an Instagram post.
Write a story that spans a month during which everything changes.
Write about a group of people determined to win an award for making the biggest cookie ever.
Write about someone going to extreme lengths to return an overdue library book.

If you have a high school student who’s interested in becoming an author, check out our free resources on the topic:

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Want to encourage your high school students to start writing? Check out Reedsy’s weekly short story contest , for the chance of winning $250! You can also check out our list of writing contests or our directory of literary magazines for more opportunities to submit your story.

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Explore more writing prompt ideas:

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55 Journal Writing Prompts High School Students Love

September 28, 2020 // by Lindsay Ann // 10 Comments

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Do you use a writer’s notebook in your English classroom? Do you find yourself wishing that you had a list of journal writing prompts high school students will like?

In this post, I will be sharing 55 different journal prompts. That’s enough for the whole year of fun writing prompts, used 1x per week, for the whole semester if used 2-3x per week, and enough for the whole quarter if used every day.

Digital vs. Paper Writer’s Notebooks

Two years ago, I was determined to have my students write. Every day. Inspired by 180 Days, I wanted to be the writer’s notebook queen of the world and change students’ lives through journal writing prompts.

I went to the nearest Staples store and bought .20 cent composition notebooks. I gave them to students on the first day of school. We wrote in them, pasting in mentor texts for the first three weeks of school. Then, for various reasons, the writer’s notebooks stayed closed more often than not. It was not sustainable for me.

Now, I’ve written in a previous post about choosing ONE thing to be your precious at the beginning of each school year. If paper writer’s notebooks are your jam, then rock on, friend!

As for me, I now use and love digital writer’s notebooks. These fun writing journal prompts notebooks are created in Google Slides and shared with students via Classroom. These writing prompts for journals never get lost, are less time-consuming than regular writer’s notebooks, and can use all sorts of colors and design elements to capture students’ attention.

Journal Writing Prompts for High School Students

Below you’ll find 55 journal writing prompts. High school students will find plenty to say about these topics, but I suggest setting ground rules for writing and setting a time limit (with timer projected).

First: Write for the whole time.

Second: Don’t worry about making sense or making sure what you write is perfectly-edited.

Third: Be honest and be specific.

1st Set: Imaginative Journal Writing Prompts High School Students 💜

If you could invent anything, what would it be? Describe why you want to invent it, what it would look like, what it would do, etc.
Choose the animals that best represent your family members and closest friends. Explain why you have chosen each animal.
What if the world was made of Jello?
If your life was suddenly a hit reality television show, what would it be called and what would viewers say about it?
Describe your survival plan in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
Create the perfect alien.
You have three doors in front of you: red, blue, and green. The red door says “wing.” The blue door says “want.” The green door says “woke.” Which door would you choose and why? Describe what you imagine to be behind each door.
Explain what a forest looks like to someone who cannot see.
Write a recipe for happiness. What would the ingredients be? In what order and amounts would you add them? What instructions would you include for baking and serving?
Create your own original, symbolic names for five locations you visit every day.
Write a guidebook for the older generation to help them understand your generation.

2nd Set: Past, Present, Future Journal Prompts

If you woke up tomorrow with amnesia, what memories would you want to return? To forget forever?
What would your five year old self have to say to your current self if you met for coffee? What would your current self say to your 10-years-from-now self?
What are you most thankful for?
Do you think the past is the best predictor of your future? Why or why not?
How have you changed from when you were a child? Why?
What does the future hold for you?
Do you think your generation will “change the world”? Why or why not?
In what ways do you look to the adults in your life for guidance? In what ways can they learn from you?
What present-day issues are you the most concerned about? Why?
What do you hope you will always remember about high school?
What is trending right now on social media and what are your thoughts on it?

3rd Set: Personal Beliefs Writing Prompts

Do you believe in karma? Why or why not?
Do you believe in love at first sight? Why or why not?
Do you believe in the law of attraction? Why or why not?
Do you believe animals fully understand human conversation? Why or why not?
What are your “rules to live by”? Which one is the most important and why?
Do you believe in “carpe diem”? Why or why not?
Do you believe in an “eye for an eye”? Why or why not?
How have your family and friends influenced your beliefs?
Do you believe that people are the product of their environment? Why or why not?
Do you believe in second chances? Why or why not?
Do certain characteristics make people more likely to succeed? Explain.

4th Set: Top Ten Lists as Journal Prompts

10 things I should have learned by now.
10 words others would use to describe me.
10 of the weirdest things in my room.
10 things I want to do before I die.
10 of the best words in the English language.
10 things that are highly underrated / overrated.
10 reasons to wake up in the morning.
10 songs on my playlist right now.
10 of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever had.
10 things I know to be true.
10 things I want to give a “makeover” to.

5th Set: Hard Questions for Journal Writing

What is the meaning of life?
Which is better: too much of something or too little of something?
Which is better: truth or beauty?
Is social media a blessing or a curse?
What two questions would you ask to find out someone’s true self? Now, answer these questions yourself.
What does it mean to be human?
Define intelligence.
To what extent do gender, ethnicity, social background influence your life?
Is society today better off than it was 100 years ago?
What labels could others give you? Are labels helpful or harmful? Explain.
Do you believe human nature is evil or good?

Wrapping Up Writing Prompts for Journals

Feel free to save the images for each set of fun writing prompts questions and use them in an agenda slideshow or to post on Google Classroom.

If you are interested in ready-made digital journals, please take a moment to check out these popular journal prompts resources! I appreciate your support!

Hey, if you loved this post, I want to be sure you’ve had the chance to grab a FREE copy of my guide to streamlined grading . I know how hard it is to do all the things as an English teacher, so I’m over the moon to be able to share with you some of my best strategies for reducing the grading overwhelm. Click on the link above or the image below to get started!

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

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Reader Interactions

March 3, 2022 at 3:46 am

Hi Lindsay, I think that these writing prompts you have come up with are just brilliant. I mean granted these are merely thoughts and questions we either ask ourselves, others or just think about and never bring out. I personally think it is important for people to actualize and put thoughts out verbally and visually. In this case, fellow writers and English students and anyone for that matter are able to see it and realize that these are actually not silly ideas that you might have thought of and overlooked at some point in your lives. But good reflective pannels for us to channel our inner writers and inquisitive thinking into and curiosity upon. I am still a beginner English teacher but have always been fascinated with power of what a few words put together becoming, a sentence, a sentence becomes a paragraph, a paragraph becomes an essay, an essay becomes a thesis, a thesis becomes a spark of curiosity and that curiosity becomes a revolution that bit by bit becomes the answer to a question being asked somewhere. Thank you for the ideas!

March 20, 2022 at 1:10 pm

My pleasure, William! You’ve put into words the beauty of inquiry and writing, even if it is only for one’s own eyes. Thank you for reading!

March 23, 2022 at 11:02 pm

i really hope these work i really think they will thanks so much

April 7, 2022 at 7:22 pm

You’re welcome! I hope that they work well for you. 🙂

April 26, 2022 at 8:13 pm

I really just LOVE these writing prompts! They are very concise and spark my imagination. Been teaching since fall Y2K and visited many of these types of posts. Yours are a cut above the rest.

April 30, 2022 at 8:23 pm

Thank you, James! I hope that you and your students have fun with these. 🙂

June 3, 2022 at 1:08 pm

Do you have a TpT store where we can buy your digital writer’s notebook?

June 4, 2022 at 5:56 pm

Yes, absolutely! Here are a couple of options:

1. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Creative-Writing-Mentor-Sentences-Digital-Notebook-2885186 2. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Digital-Creative-Writing-Journal-2729748 3. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/300-Google-Drive-Journal-Writing-Prompts-2715746

Hope this helps! Lindsay

July 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

These are so, so good! It’s hard to find writing prompts that don’t make my high school students roll their eyes, lol, but these are fantastic and sure to spark creativity. Thank you!

[…] growth, and a clearer sense of identity. Sources such as Journal Buddies, Story Writing Academy, Lindsay Ann Learning, and Money Prodigy provide many creative writing prompts for journaling, article writing, and story […]

100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle & High School – 2024

April 15, 2024

creative writing prompts for high school and middle school teens

Some high school students dream of writing for a living, perhaps pursuing an English major in college, or even attending a creative writing MFA program later on. For other students, creative writing can be useful for school assignments, in English and other subjects, and also for preparing their Common App essays . In a less goal-oriented sense, daily freewriting in a journal can be a healthy life practice for many high schoolers. Not sure where to start? Continue reading for 100 creative writing prompts for middle school and high school students. These middle/high school writing prompts offer inspiration for getting started with writing in a number of genres and styles.

Click here to view the 35 Best Colleges for Creative Writing .

What are Creative Writing Prompts?

Similar to how an academic essay prompt provides a jumping-off point for forming and organizing an argument, creative writing prompts are points of initiation for writing a story, poem, or creative essay. Prompts can be useful for writers of all ages, helping many to get past writer’s block and just start (often one of the most difficult parts of a writing process).

Writing prompts come in a variety of forms. Sometimes they are phrases used to begin sentences. Other times they are questions, more like academic essay prompts Writing prompts can also involve objects such as photographs, or activities such as walking. Below, you will find high school writing prompts that use memories, objects, senses (smell/taste/touch), abstract ideas , and even songs as jumping-off points for creative writing. These prompts can be used to write in a variety of forms, from short stories to creative essays, to poems.

How to use Creative Writing Prompts

Before we get started with the list, are a few tips when using creative writing prompts:

Experiment with different formats : Prose is great, but there’s no need to limit yourself to full sentences, at least at first. A piece of creative writing can begin with a poem, or a dialogue, or even a list. You can always bring it back to prose later if needed.

Interpret the prompt broadly : The point of a creative writing prompt is not to answer it “correctly” or “precisely.” You might begin with the prompt, but then your ideas could take you in a completely different direction. The words in the prompt also don’t need to open your poem or essay, but could appear somewhere in the middle.

Switch up/pile up the prompts : Try using two or three prompts and combine them, or weave between them. Perhaps choose a main prompt, and a different “sub-prompt.” For example, your main prompt might be “write about being in transit from one place to another,” and within that prompt, you might use the prompt to “describe a physical sensation,” and/or one the dialogue prompts. This could be a fun way to find complexity as you write.

Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School Students (Continued)

Write first, edit later : While you’re first getting started with a prompt, leave the typos and bad grammar. Obsessing over details can take away from your flow of thoughts. You will inevitably make many fixes when you go back through to edit.

Write consistently : It often becomes easier to write when it’s a practice , rather than a once-in-a-while kind of activity. For some, it’s useful to write daily. Others find time to write every few days, or every weekend. Sometimes, a word-count goal can help (100 words a day, 2,000 words a month, etc.). If you set a goal, make sure it’s realistic. Start small and build from there, rather than starting with an unachievable goal and quickly giving up.

100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School Teens

Here are some prompts for getting started with your creative writing. These are organized by method, rather than genre, so they can inspire writing in a variety of forms. Pick and choose the ones that work best for you, and enjoy!

Prompts using memories

Begin each sentence or group of sentences with the phrase, “I remember…”
Describe a family ritual.
Choose an event in your life, and write about it from the perspective of someone else who was there.
Pick a pathway you take on a regular basis (to school, or to a friend’s house). Describe five landmarks that you remember from this pathway.
Write about your house or apartment using a memory from each room.
Write an imaginary history of the previous people who lived in your house or apartment.
Write about an ancestor based on stories you’ve heard from relatives.
What’s your earliest memory?
Who was your first friend?
Write a letter to someone you haven’t seen since childhood.
Write about yourself now from the perspective of yourself twenty, or eighty, years from now.
Write about the best month of the year.
Write about the worst day of the year.
Rant about something that has always annoyed you.
Write about the hottest or coldest day you can remember.
Visualize a fleeting moment in your life and as though it’s a photograph, and time yourself 5 minutes to write every detail you can remember about the scene.
Draw out a timeline of your life so far. Then choose three years to write about, as though you were writing for a history book.
Write about a historical event in the first person, as though you remember it.
Write about a memory of being in transit from one place to another.

Objects and photographs as creative writing prompts

Describe the first object you see in the room. What importance does it have in your life? What memories do you have with this object? What might it symbolize?
Pick up an object, and spend some time holding it/examining it. Write about how it looks, feels, and smells. Write about the material that it’s made from.
Choose a favorite family photograph. What could someone know just by looking at the photograph? What’s secretly happening in the photograph?
Choose a photograph and tell the story of this photograph from the perspective of someone or something in it.
Write about a color by describing three objects that are that color.
Tell the story of a piece of trash.
Tell the story of a pair of shoes.
Tell the story of your oldest piece of clothing.

Senses and observations as creative writing prompts

Describe a sound you hear in the room or outside. Choose the first sound you notice. What are its qualities? It’s rhythms? What other sounds does it remind you of?
Describe a physical sensation you feel right now, in as much detail as possible.
Listen to a conversation and write down a phrase that you hear someone say. Start a free-write with this phrase.
Write about a food by describing its qualities, but don’t say what it is.
Describe a flavor (salty, sweet, bitter, etc.) to someone who has never tasted it before.
Narrate your day through tastes you tasted.
Narrate your day through sounds you heard.
Narrate your day through physical sensations you felt.
Describe in detail the physical process of doing an action you consider simple or mundane, like walking or lying down or chopping vegetables.
Write about the sensation of doing an action you consider physically demanding or tiring, like running or lifting heavy boxes.
Describe something that gives you goosebumps.
Write a story that involves drinking a cold glass of water on a hot day.
Write a story that involves entering a warm house from a cold snowy day.
Describe someone’s facial features in as much detail as possible.

Songs, books, and other art

Choose a song quote, write it down, and free-write from there.
Choose a song, and write a story in which that song is playing in the car.
Choose a song, and write to the rhythm of that song.
Choose a character from a book, and describe an event in your life from the perspective of that character.
Go to a library and write down 10 book titles that catch your eye. Free-write for 5 minutes beginning with each one.
Go to a library and open to random book pages, and write down 5 sentences that catch your attention. Use those sentences as prompts and free-write for 5-minutes with each.
Choose a piece of abstract artwork. Jot down 10 words that come to mind from the painting or drawing, and free-write for 2 minutes based on each word.
Find a picture of a dramatic Renaissance painting online. Tell a story about what’s going on in the painting that has nothing to do with what the artist intended.
Write about your day in five acts, like a Shakespearean play. If your day were a play, what would be the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution?
Narrate a complicated book or film plot using only short sentences.
Read a short poem. Then write a poem that could be a “sister” or “cousin” of that poem.

Abstract ideas as creative writing prompts

Write about an experience that demonstrates an abstract idea, such as “love” or “home” or “freedom” or “loss” without ever using the word itself.
Write a list of ways to say “hello” without actually saying “hello.”
Write a list of ways to say “I love you” without actually saying “I love you.”
Do you believe in ghosts? Describe a ghost.
Invent a mode of time travel.
Glass half-full/half-empty: Write about an event or situation with a positive outlook. Then write about it with a miserable outlook.
Free-write beginning with “my religion is…” (what comes next can have as much or as little to do with organized religion as you’d like).
Free-write beginning with “my gender is…” (what comes next can have as much or as little to do with common ideas of gender as you’d like).
Write about a person or character that is “good” and one that is “evil.” Then write about the “evil” in the good character and the “good” in the evil character.
Write like you’re telling a secret.
Describe a moment of beauty you witnessed. What makes something beautiful?

Prompts for playing with narrative and character

Begin writing with the phrase, “It all started when…”
Tell a story from the middle of the most dramatic part.
Write a story that begins with the ending.
Begin a story but give it 5 possible endings.
Write a list of ways to dramatically quit a terrible job.
Write about a character breaking a social rule or ritual (i.e., walking backwards, sitting on the floor of a restaurant, wearing a ballgown to the grocery store). What are the ramifications?
You are sent to the principal’s office. Justify your bad behavior.
Re-write a well-known fairytale but set it in your school.
Write your own version of the TV show trope where someone gets stuck in an elevator with a stranger, or a secret love interest, or a nemesis.
Imagine a day where you said everything you were thinking, and write about it.
Write about a scenario in which you have too much of a good thing.
Write about a scenario in which money can buy happiness.
Invent a bank or museum heist.
Invent a superhero, including an origin story.
Write using the form of the scientific method (question, hypothesis, test, analyze data conclusion).
Write using the form of a recipe.

Middle School & High School Creative writing prompts for playing with fact vs. fiction

Write something you know for sure is true, and then, “but maybe it isn’t.” Then explain why that thing may not be true.
Write a statement and contradict that statement. Then do it again.
Draft an email with an outlandish excuse as to why you didn’t do your homework or why you need an extension.
Write about your morning routine, and make it sound extravagant/luxurious (even if it isn’t).
You’ve just won an award for doing a very mundane and simple task. Write your acceptance speech.
Write about a non-athletic event as though it were a sports game.
Write about the most complicated way to complete a simple task.
Write a brief history of your life, and exaggerate everything.
Write about your day, but lie about some things.
Tell the story of your birth.
Choose a historical event and write an alternative outcome.
Write about a day in the life of a famous person in history.
Read an instructional manual, and change three instructions to include some kind of magical or otherwise impossible element.

Prompts for starting with dialogue

Write a texting conversation between two friends who haven’t spoken in years.
Write a texting conversation between two friends who speak every day and know each other better than anyone.
Watch two people on the street having a conversation, and imagine the conversation they’re having. Write it down.
Write an overheard conversation behind a closed door that you shouldn’t be listening to.
Write a conversation between two characters arguing about contradicting memories of what happened.
You have a difficult decision to make. Write a conversation about it with yourself.
Write a conversation with a total lack of communication.
Write a job interview gone badly.

Final Thoughts – Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School

Hopefully you have found several of these creative writing prompts helpful. Remember that when writing creatively, especially on your own, you can mix, match, and change prompts. For more on writing for high school students, check out the following articles:

College Application Essay Topics to Avoid
160 Good Argumentative Essay Topics
150 Good Persuasive Speech Topics
Good Transition Words for Essays
High School Success

Sarah Mininsohn

With a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sarah is a writer, educator, and artist. She served as a graduate instructor at the University of Illinois, a tutor at St Peter’s School in Philadelphia, and an academic writing tutor and thesis mentor at Wesleyan’s Writing Workshop.

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4 Engaging Writing Tasks for High School Students

Short, authentic writing tasks can encourage high school students to compose richer long pieces.

It’s quite likely that many of your students dislike writing. After all, they’re often expected to compose lengthy pieces that typically require lots of brainstorming, researching, planning, outlining, drafting, revising, and editing—and that can be exhausting. My class of high school boys had the same attitude, and their short, underdeveloped, and passionless pieces were most telling. I had to overhaul my approach.

During my quest for an alternative practice, I quickly learned that by building students’ knowledge about the topic on which they are expected to compose, and by initially assigning them shorter and more authentic writing tasks, we can successfully motivate them to write longer, richer, and more compelling multiparagraph pieces. Yes, baby steps—from a creep to a stable walk—can work wonders.

Incorporate Knowledge-Building Activities

Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler said it best in The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades : “Writing and content knowledge are intimately related. You can’t write well about something you don’t know well. The more students know about a topic before they begin to write, the better they will be able to write about it.”

Documentaries, podcasts, TED Talks, and other authentic and engaging audiovisuals can facilitate this knowledge building. Field trips, as well as interviews with relevant community-based experts, can also offer students significant fodder for their writing.

Moreover, when students have interesting discoveries to share, they’ll be excited about the writing tasks, and their compositions are likely to be longer, more detailed, more affecting, and more compelling. Because they have a rich knowledge bank, they’re less likely to get stuck and frustrated as they write. Knowledge stimulates ideas.

But information gathering is not all. It’s also important to show students how to use the newly learned content. We don’t want them to plagiarize information or inadvertently silence their own voices by over-quoting others. Their research should enhance what they write, not substitute for their initial thoughts or suppress their creativity.

What can you do then?

Go beyond lessons in citation format. Model, through write-aloud, how to make decisions about the content included in written work, how to paraphrase and summarize from the original source, and how to ensure that the added content actually strengthens what you already have.

Offer Authentically Rooted Writing Assignments

Finally, make sure that the writing assignments are authentic—with realistic, real-world communicative goals and true-to-life audiences (not just the classroom teacher). Here are some suggestions that you can implement in your teaching practice:

Travel blogs: Take students on virtual field trips. Nearpod , Google Earth, and YouTube are excellent for this. Following this activity, have students write a blog post to describe the place they visited. If your students have visited resorts or attraction sites locally, they could write about that experience, recommend activities for prospective visitors, and simultaneously persuade them to visit when it is safe to do so.

Their insights might even persuade others to travel to this site. Students could use pictures to supplement their writing. They could also convert their written piece into a mini-video production for a real or imagined YouTube channel that promotes exotic getaways. Their composition would become the audio narration, and, with some background reggae, R & B, or any other culturally popular music, their piece would be beautifully transformed into a riveting marketing pitch.

Movie reviews: Due to the pandemic, we know that many of our students may be watching far more movies than ever before. Therefore, let’s repurpose this social activity and use what they love or do for pleasure to help them refine a key academic skill. Have students write a review of their most recently watched or favorite film.

Prompt them to provide a summary of the movie, share their impressions of major characters and the plot’s unfolding, and examine the techniques used to create suspense and mounting tension. Later, when they’re writing their own narratives or putting on drama productions, they can adopt and adapt some of these techniques.

Song or music video reviews: Some students enjoy listening to music, so a song or music video review could also motivate them and facilitate interest-based differentiation. State where the review may be published—a local tabloid, a social media page, etc. Have students keep that in mind as they write so that their finished pieces are authentic and fitting for the context and audience intended.

Social media: Based on your content area, you could have students make discipline-specific posts and write related captions. For instance, if you are looking at rocks in geography or soil types in science, have students photograph different types and post related descriptive or explanatory captions. They’ll be learning and teaching concurrently.

Provide Mentor Texts

These activities are exciting, but before you scuttle off to assign them, find or create models of the kinds of writing that you want your students to produce. Discuss the sample by prompting students to keenly attend to the content and the writer’s craft (style and techniques) throughout the piece.

Finally, make arrangements to have your students publish their pieces—through a safe online space or through an in-school magazine or newsletter—for authenticity at its finest.

50 Fun Prompt Writing Ideas for High School Students

May 16, 2023

Students either love or hate writing. Those who love it usually are the ones who enjoy reading as well. They might spend their time journaling, composing poetry, or writing short stories. These students not only enjoy the process; they embrace it with every part of their being and enjoy engaging in assigned prompt writing ideas!

For most students, however, writing is synonymous with drudgery. They hear that they are going to have to write something, and they automatically shut down. Because of this unfortunate mindset usually brought about by the feeling of overwhelm, we need to get our students to see the value of high school writing activities that include easy-to-teach Prompt Writing Ideas.

There are so many options beyond the traditional five-paragraph essay! Keep reading for 50 Prompt Writing Ideas for High School Students !

Need help with Test Prep? Check out this FREE Pack of 3 Test Prep Activities to help students achieve success on standardized tests

Table of Contents

50 Prompt Writing Ideas for High School Students

10 Narrative Prompt Writing Ideas

Before starting my business, I didn’t really see the value of writing stories. I mean, I enjoy a good story. I love reading short stories by Edgar Allan Poe , some of William Shakespeare’s plays , and other random historical fiction. Beyond personal entertainment or academia, I could not really see why teaching narrative writing was so important.

Boy, was I wrong!

Narrative writing is so valuable. Think about it. When we buy something, we really want to hear the story behind it.

We listen to how something was created, how a person struggled with a problem, and how a product provided a solution! We connect with each other through stories!

Here are some relatively simple ways to incorporate narrative writing in your high school classroom with 10 Prompt Writing Ideas:

Write a Journal Entry- Students can respond to someone from a story as if they know the character personally.
Create an Advertisement- Students can include a story from a “buyer” as an ad technique.
Informational/Argument Essays- Students can use a short narrative as support.
Post on Social Media- Students can create a post that tells a story about something…anything!
Develop a Business Plan- Students can create a business plan and use narratives to relay the potential of a future business.
Write a Poem/Song- Students can write a poem or song that actually tells a story.
Create a Website- Students can create an About Me page for a fictitious online store that includes a story.
Participate in a Job Interview- Students can conduct interviews with each other and include stories that demonstrate certain skills or knowledge.
Give a Speech- Students can do research on an idea they are passionate about and include stories to support their ideas.
Record a Video- Students can write and record stories about their lives and “post” them on various platforms.

10 Satirical Prompt Writing Ideas

When it comes to bridging the gap between reading satire and writing satire , students need guidance. I would start by reading both “Sending Grandma to the Ovens” and “A Modest Proposal.” These two texts are similar in structure, purpose, and topic. Your students can model their own essays after these texts. They can even propose something!

Here are some HOW TO satirical prompt writing ideas :

How to be a wonderful boyfriend or girlfriend
How to propose to someone
How to be a good student
How to be a productive employee
How to grow a business
How to be an amazing parent
How to be an effective writer
How to prepare for exams
How to get a job
How to create friendships

10 Expository Prompt Writing Ideas

Essentially, an exposition seeks to explain something. And things in our world ALWAYS need explaining!

We crave information, and one of my major goals as a teacher is to encourage students to seek out information instead of what just pops up on social media feeds. We have so much knowledge, it can be overwhelming, so giving students a focus would be super helpful.

When writing an exposition, students have several options:

They can write about what they already know, write about what they don’t know by doing research, or write about a combination of the two.

Need help with teaching research? Click below!

Here are some expository prompt writing ideas that might require a bit of research:

Interesting hobbies I never knew about
Skills I will need for life
Getting a job interview
Jobs that we take for granted
Things to do when we don’t have electricity
What I never knew about my family
Popular foods in…(a culture/country)
Why certain songs are popular
Uses for a cell phone
History of chocolate

10 Argument Prompt Writing Ideas

One of the toughest types of writing involving prompt writing ideas for students is the argument essay. Now, I am talking about the “you need to do research to make your case” kind of argument paper.

Let’s be real. Instead of doing the research ourselves, we rely on one or two news outlets to tell us information, or maybe, God forbid, we scroll through social media to get our information.

And I don’t know about you. I usually just get an interpretation or opinion on the facts. I don’t get the actual stories, statistics, and facts. I get, at most, a watered-down version of what I should actually know.

This reality is why we MUST teach our students how to support their ideas with cited evidence. We don’t need to teach students merely to argue. They do this beautifully with their friends on a daily basis. They need to know how to locate credible evidence, and I am not just talking .gov, .org, or .edu! This requirement of credibility applies to pretty much any prompt writing ideas!

Here are some argument prompt writing ideas that will REQUIRE research:

Should student loans be forgiven?
Should everyone go to college?
Should social media companies be allowed to censor content?
Should students have to take higher-level math?
Should high school or college students be required to take a financial literacy course?
Should students take a gap year before going to college?
Should there be a minimum wage?
Should students earn grades in their classes (A, B, C, D, F)?
Should classes be organized by age or ability in a specific subject area?
Should volunteer hours be required for graduation?

Notice: You don’t have to ask students to write a ten-page argument paper in order to feel like your students are learning what they need to know to be successful. You could start with a page, a paragraph, a discussion, or even a 1-minute presentation. Not everything has to be formal in the introductory stage. Sometimes, we want to get our students thinking about the topic and excited before they begin!

10 Rhetorical Analysis Prompts

I am a big fan of requiring students to practice writing a rhetorical analysis essay . At first, it can be daunting. Even the word “rhetoric” can be difficult to explain at times.

Most of the Prompt Writing Ideas below can be used or revised to fit any piece of rhetoric:

How does the speaker use logos in achieving the purpose of the speech?
What techniques are used by the author to relay the message that_____?
How does the writer include emotional language in order to appeal to the audience?
Why is repetition used throughout the passage?
What forms of evidence support the rhetor’s argument?
How are the rhetorical appeals used in relation to the audience’s perspective?
Why might the tone of the speaker change throughout the text?
What kinds of strategies are used in online ads versus physical ads?
How might you use different techniques when talking with your parents/guardians versus your friends?
What types of diction and/or syntax might a creator use when discussing a topic in college?

If you go step by step through the analysis writing process, your students can master this skill. It might take more time than you think, but most students will achieve some level of success. Plus, they can apply these skills to any essay they will have to write in the future! You can teach How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay Step By Step !

teach how to write a rhetorical analysis essay

By modeling what you want, you will more likely get what you want from your students. This process also applies to writing a rhetorical analysis essay. Going through every step above is key to success.

Here are some reading and writing packs that may make the rhetorical analysis essay process that much easier:

Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God Rhetorical Analysis Pack
A Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis Pack
The Declaration of Independence: Rhetorical Analysis Writing Pack
Gettysburg Address Activities: Rhetorical Analysis Short Response
Declaration of Sentiments Rhetorical Devices Analysis Activity Stanton
Sojourner Truth Speech Aint I a Woman: Summary, Rhetorical Analysis
Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty Give Me Death Speech Rhetorical Analysis Pack
Florence Kelley Speech About Child Labor Rhetorical Analysis Pack
Sending Grandma to the Ovens Rhetorical Analysis Pack

Need more Prompt Writing Ideas for your middle or high school classroom ? Check out my store Kristin Menke-Integrated ELA Test Prep !

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37 Creative Writing Prompts for High School

Michele is a writer who has been published both locally and internationally.

Learn about our Editorial Policy .

Creative writing prompts for high school students can be a good way to coax reluctant writers into getting their thoughts down on paper. Writing prompts can be silly or serious and work for fiction, nonfiction, and any other type of writing project. A writing prompt is simply meant to spark an idea and get you brainstorming ideas for writing.

Creative High School Poetry Writing Prompts

One type of creative writing is poetry. You can use poetry prompts for high school for language arts class assignments or to create your own personal poems at home.

Choose a song lyric that best describes your personality and expand it into a poem.
Use the name of your favorite band or music group to start an acrostic poem.
Write a haiku about the first class you have at school each day.
Use your school name, mascot, and colors to write a rhyming school spirit chant.
Write an ode to your favorite outfit or piece of clothing.
Write down the first 10 words you think of and then use each word in one line of your poem.
Write one verse about each year of high school.
Turn your favorite meme or any viral meme into a poem using the line on the meme as the opening line of your poem.
Use the name of a video game as your title and write a poem about whatever the opposite of that title would be.
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Fun Writing Prompts for Creative Fiction in High School

Creative fiction writing prompts can help you get started on any piece of creative writing. You can use real life to inspire the fantasy world you'll create in your work of fiction.

Writing Prompts for Short Works of Creative Fiction

Whether you need to write a short story, flash fiction, or a letter, these prompts will help you get a short work of fiction going.

What magical thing might happen to you when you turn 16 or 18?
Your parents have decided to move you to the first human colony in space. What's it like?
You're all trapped in your high school and may be the last teens who can save the world.
Write a letter to yourself at 60 years old.
Choose a book or movie that eerily parallels your life. How did they get your story?
Social media is now the only way people can communicate, so what does this world look like?
A monster you've imagined is now terrorizing the world. What does it look like? What motivates it to grow? How can you stop it?

Writing Prompts for Long Works of Creative Fiction

If you want to pen your first novel, screenplay, or skit, these prompts can give your storyline a heavy dose of originality.

Two weather phenomena combine to create a super storm.
The entire world reaches an epic peace agreement where there are no longer separate countries, but instead one country.
Each of your closest friends exists in a parallel universe that only you can access.
People create a world where kids are never allowed to grow up.
Your high school is taken over by scientists.
Whenever you hear a song, it opens up a door to another place.

Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts for Teenagers

From persuasive essays to high school journal topics , nonfiction writing prompts can be just as creative as fiction writing prompts. Take inspiration from journal writing prompts for high school or current news headlines.

Global warming has hit its worst point; now what does the world look like?
No one cares about actors, singers, and athletes anymore, so who becomes the new celebrities?
You are 45 years old and the parent of a teenage daughter who has just told you that she is pregnant. Describe how you would handle this difficult situation.
You find a time machine that allows you to travel back into the past. What things would you tell your younger self based on the knowledge you have now?
A Hollywood executive sees your Instagram and wants to make a movie of your life.
What would happen if you swapped places with the person you most admire for one day?
What would happen if you swapped places with your worst enemy for the same amount of time?
Teenagers in your town stage a protest at your school.
Your town hires a teenager as the new mayor.

Visual Writing Prompts for High School Creative Writing

Using photographs as writing prompts or other forms of visual writing prompts is a great alternative to wordy writing prompts, especially for visual learners. Everything from memes to movie stills can help inspire your creative writing.

High School Creative Writing Games Using Prompts

Using creative writing games in high school doesn't have to feel immature and can help teens get their creative juices flowing.

Play a drawing board game like Pictionary, only have players write poems or flash fiction about the prompts instead of drawing pictures.
Host a story starter bee where each student is shown an image, instead of being given a word, and they have 30 seconds to shout out a writing prompt based on the image. The last answer given by the last student standing is the prompt everyone has to use.
Have each student write a prompt on a piece of paper and crumple it up. Let the teens have a mini paper war, but when you say "Stop!" they each have to pick up the closest crumpled prompt to use for their assignment.

Spark an Idea With Writing Prompts

When you need good writing topics for creative writing assignments or journaling, writing prompts for kids and teens can help spark an idea. If you're teaching writing skills to high school students, creative writing prompts, and even high school journal prompts , geared toward this age group will get them excited about your lesson.

Teach Creative Writing In High School With 10 Fun Activities

Creative writing is a meaningful aspect of literature that mandates you to utilize your expertise, ingenuity, and story to depict a critical message, emotion, or plot. It defies the traditional bounds of other forms of writing and is completely subjective to our preferences and experiences. In creative writing, it’s all about imaginativeness!

Using creative imagination and originality to convey feelings and concepts in a unique way is at the heart of creative writing. Simply stated, it’s about infusing your own ‘flair’ into your writing, moving beyond academic or other technical kinds of literature.

In this post, we will explore the various activities which would be advantageous for a high schooler who wishes to indulge in creative writing!

What Happens When Creative Writing Is Put To Use?

Creative writing is any form of writing that deviates from traditional professional, investigative journalism, educational, or technological forms of literature. It is typically distinguished by emphasizing narrative craft, character development, literary tropes, or various poetic traditions.

Here are the few ways how high schoolers can benefit from creative writing –

1. Imagination

When you write creatively, you expand your imagination by creating new environments, scenarios, and characters. This way, you are also boosting and stretching your imagination, as well as “thinking out of the box.” This allows you to concentrate your energy on many other things and improve your ability to find fresh ideas and alternatives to problems you’re having. Whether you’re a researcher or a businessman, creative writing will increase your imagination and help you think more creatively, and push the boundaries.

2. Empathy and Communications skills

When you create characters, you’ll be constructing emotions, personalities, behaviors, and world views that are distinct from your own. Writers must conceive personalities, emotions, places, and walks of life outside of their own lives while creating universes with fictional characters and settings.

This can give children a good dose of empathy and understanding for those who aren’t like them, who don’t live where they do or go through the same things they do daily. Writers are better equipped to communicate when they have a greater understanding of other points of view. They can come up with creative ways to explain and debate subjects from multiple perspectives. This ability is crucial in both professional and personal situations.

3. Clarification of Thoughts

Creating structures in creative writing allows you to organize your impressions and emotions into a logical procedure. You may express both your thoughts and your sentiments through creative writing. For example, if you’re a marketing executive, you could create a short tale in which your clientele reads your promotional emails. You can guess what they’re up to, where they’re seated, what’s around them, and so on.

This enables you to focus on the language and strategies you employ. Alternatively, if you’re a technical writer writing on a new desktop platform, you could create a creative scenario in which a user encounters a problem.

4. Broadens Vocabulary and gets a better understanding of reading and writing

You’ll learn a larger vocabulary and a better understanding of the mechanics of reading and writing as you begin to practice writing exercises regularly. Even if you’re writing a budget report, you’ll know when rigid grammar standards work and when they don’t, and you’ll know what will make your writing flow better for your readers. Exploring different ways of expressing yourself when writing creatively allows you to extend your vocabulary.

You’ll notice a change in your use and range of language as you improve your writing over time, which will be useful in any professional route and social scenario. You’ll be able to bend and break the rules when you need to, to utilize your voice and make what you’re writing engaging without coming off as an amateur, dull, or inauthentic once you’ve grasped the fundamentals of writing professionally and creatively.

5. Building Self-Belief

When you write creatively, you’re actively involved in an activity that allows you to fully develop your voice and point of view without being constrained. You have a better chance to investigate and express your feelings about various issues, opinions, ideas, and characters. And you’ll feel more at ease and secure stating your thoughts and perspectives in other things you write as a result of this.

Writers who don’t write creatively may be concerned about appearing authoritative or trustworthy. They accidentally lose their voice and sound like drones spouting statistics by omitting to include their perspective on the topics they’re writing about. As a result, they miss out on using their distinct voice and presenting themselves as an expert with real-world expertise.

Creative Writing Activities That Will Strengthen Your Writing Skills

Short spurts of spontaneous writing make up creative writing activities. These writing exercises push a writer to tackle a familiar topic in a new way, ranging from one line to a lengthy tale. Short, spontaneous projects are common in creative writing programs, but any writer should make them a regular practice to extend their abilities and learn new tactics to approach a series of stories.

These activities must be performed for ten minutes at a time, several times a week – by creative writers. They’re designed to help you improve your writing abilities, generate fresh story ideas, and become a better writer.

1. Free Writing

Writing is the first and foremost activity that is going to give your creative writing a boost. Start with a blank page and let your stream of thoughts and emotions flow. Then simply begin writing. Don’t pause to think or alter what you’re expressing. This is known as “free writing.” This writing activity is referred to as “morning pages” by Julia Cameron, the author of ‘The Artist’s Way.’ She recommends that authors do this every day when they first wake up. Stream of consciousness writing can provide some intriguing concepts.

Allow your intellect to take the lead as your fingers type. Or write a letter to your younger self. Consider a topic you’d like to discuss, such as a noteworthy event, and write it down. Give guidance or convey a message that you wish you had heard as a youngster or a young adult.

2. Modify a Storyline – Read

Most of us like to read. However, just reading won’t really help augment your creative writing skills. While reading bestows insight into the deeper meanings of numerous things, you need a more concrete approach to better your aptitude. To do this, you can modify any storyline. Take an episode from a chapter, if you’re feeling brave—from one of your favorite books and recreate it. Write it from the perspective of a different character. Swap out the main character in this exercise to examine how the story may be conveyed differently.

Take Percy Jackson’s thrilling conclusion, for instance, and rework it with Annabeth as the primary character. Another way to approach this creative activity is to keep the primary character but switch viewpoints. Rewrite a scene in the third person if the writer has told a story in the first person.

3. Add Creative Writing Prompts or Create Flash Fiction

Use writing prompts, often known as narrative starters, to produce writing ideas. A writing prompt is a sentence or short excerpt that a writer uses to start composing a story on the spot. You can look up writing prompts online, pick a sentence out of a magazine at random, or use a brilliant line from a well-known work as the start of your short scene.

Another thing you can do to accentuate your writing is to create flash fiction. Sit down at your desktop or pick up a pen and paper and write a 500-word story on the spur of the moment. This isn’t the same as just writing whatever comes to mind. With no fixed guidelines, free writing generates a stream of consciousness. All of the basic components of a story arc, such as plot, conflict, and character development, are required in flash fiction, albeit in a shortened form.

4. Create a Fictitious Advertisement

Pick a random word from a nearby book or newspaper and create a fictitious commercial for it. Write one ad in a formal, abbreviated newspaper classified format to require you to pay special attention to your word choice to sell the item. Then write one for an online marketplace that allows for longer, more casual text, such as Craigslist. Describe the item and persuade the reader to purchase it in each one.

5. Engage in Conversations

Engaging in conversations with your friends/family – or simply communicating can help brush up your writing skills. Talk to your loved ones about their hobbies, career, views on societal issues – any suitable topic for that matter. This helps implement others’ points of view and expands your mental ability. Another useful thing that you can do is – make another person’s tale and create it by implementing your own thoughts. Then talk about it in an impeccable manner. Also, talk in complete sentences. This goes to show your Linguistic intelligence proficiency – and helps augment your creative writing skills.

6. Create Your Own Website/Blog

Start your search for blogging. There are a million writing suggestions out there, but they all boil down to the same thing: write. Blogging is excellent writing practice because it gives you a place to write regularly.

To keep your fingers and mind nimble, write a post every day. Like most bloggers, you’ll want to restrict your subject—perhaps you’ll focus on parenting or start a how-to site where you can tell stories from your point of view.

7. Participate in Debates/Extempores

Participating in debates, extempores – anchoring for your school function, giving a speech, all of these activities help boost your creative spirit. These group events make you understand what other people are envisioning, which in turn helps you generate new ideas, approaches, and methods. Not only do they improve your articulation and research skills, but they also develop critical thinking and emotional control abilities. All of these promote a better creative writing aptitude.

8. Start a YouTube Channel or Podcast

Starting a YouTube channel or podcast will definitely level up your creative game. YouTube is a never-ending platform, covering myriads of topics. Choose a particular niche for your channel.

Then do your topic research, create content, manage SEO, approach brands, talk to clients and influencers – do all the good stuff. Communicating with other influencers and creating content will take your creative writing skills to another level. Starting a podcast will have a similar impact.

9. Love them? Say it with your words!

We have many festivals, occasions, birthdays, parties, anniversaries and whatnot! You can employ these special days and boost your creative writing skills. You can make a token of love for them – writing about your feelings. You can also make gift cards, birthday cards, dinner menus, and so on. So let’s say, it’s your mother’s birthday, you can write her a token of love, elucidating your feelings and letting her know what all she’s done for you and that you’re grateful. Do this for all your near and dear ones. This not only spreads positivity and love but helps you develop your creative aptitude.

10. The What-if Game

The What-If game is an incredible way to upgrade your creative abilities. You can play this game with your friends, cousins, relatives, or solo. Here, you need to find links to many interesting hypothetical questions. For instance, what if the sun doesn’t rise for a week? What if there’s no oxygen for one minute? Play it with your peeps, or ask these questions to yourself. It can be anything random but concrete. If you don’t know the answers to the questions, look them up on Google. This way, you’re training your mind to learn new concepts all the while enhancing your visualization process.

We can conclude that creative writing encourages students to think creatively, use their imaginations, imply alternatives, expand their thinking processes, and improve their problem-solving skills. It also allows the child to express themselves and grow their voice. Besides, it enhances reasoning abilities. The principle behind the creative writing concept is that everyone can gain the qualities that are needed to become a successful writer or, rather become good at writing. Creative writing is all about using language in new and innovative ways.

Sananda Bhattacharya, Chief Editor of TheHighSchooler, is dedicated to enhancing operations and growth. With degrees in Literature and Asian Studies from Presidency University, Kolkata, she leverages her educational and innovative background to shape TheHighSchooler into a pivotal resource hub. Providing valuable insights, practical activities, and guidance on school life, graduation, scholarships, and more, Sananda’s leadership enriches the journey of high school students.

Explore a plethora of invaluable resources and insights tailored for high schoolers at TheHighSchooler, under the guidance of Sananda Bhattacharya’s expertise. You can follow her on Linkedin

Creative Writing Prompts For High School Students – 12 Categories

Published January 3, 2023

Are you a high school student struggling to find inspiration for your creative writing assignments? Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and can’t seem to come up with new and exciting ideas? If so, you’re not alone.

Many students struggle with coming up with ideas for creative writing, especially when they feel pressure to produce something original and engaging.

But the good news is that there are ways to break through the block and find inspiration for your writing.

For instance, by attending our award-winning creative writing summer programme , you’ll learn how to conquer the fear of the blank page. How? By learning proven formulas for creating brilliant stories.

Another way to have that creative spark is to use creative writing prompts.

This article will provide creative high school students like yourself with a list of creative writing prompts. So you’ll get the inspiration you need to get into the flow and start writing!

What are Writing Prompts?

Writing prompts are ideas that help writers overcome writer’s block and get started with their writing. They can come in various forms, including a

Or series of questions.

Creative writing prompts get your creative juices flowing. When you encounter a writing prompt, it encourages you to start writing!

What types of writing, you ask? It can be anything from fiction writing to essay writing. Creative writing prompts are even used to get you started with freewriting in your daily journal.

So you see, many writers find writing prompts a quick and easy way to begin a new writing project. Or to overcome writer’s block when they are stuck.

How Do You Use Writing Prompts?

There are many different ways to use writing prompts. Here are a few ideas:

Use writing prompts to start a new writing project.

Are you having trouble coming up with ideas for a new writing project? Try using a writing prompt to get started. You can use a writing prompt as the starting point for a

Short story
Essay, or any other type of writing.

Use writing prompts to overcome writer’s block.

Stuck on a particular piece of writing and can’t seem to move forward? Use writing prompts to brainstorm on how to proceed!

Use writing prompts to practice your writing skills.

As the old adage says, practice makes perfect! You can use writing prompts to practice different writing techniques or styles. Or try out different writing genres!

Use writing prompts to challenge yourself.

You can use writing prompts to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try writing about things you might not usually write about.

Say your comfort zone is writing fantasy stories. And you want to try something new. Why not use scary writing prompts as a starting point?

To use a writing prompt, choose a prompt that interests you and start writing. There are no hard and fast rules about how to use writing prompts – the important thing is to just start writing and see where the prompt takes you!

Creative Writing Prompts High School Students will Love

Write a story about a character who:

discovers a mysterious, abandoned house in the woods
suddenly gains the power of time travel
has to confront their greatest fear
is given the opportunity to live in a different time period
discovers a secret underground society
is given a magical object that can grant wishes.

Or, check out the other prompts too:

Write a poem about a summer day you will never forget.
Imagine that you are stranded on a deserted island. Write a story about your experience.
Write a letter to your future self ten years from now.
Imagine that you are a detective trying to solve a mysterious crime. Write a story about your investigation.

Creative High School Poetry Writing Prompts

Write a poem about a/an:

summer romance you will never forget
memorable experience you had with a friend
place that holds special meaning for you
moment of clarity or realisation that you had
person who has had a significant impact on your life
object that holds special meaning for you
dream that you had and can’t seem to forget
time when you felt completely lost
time when you felt completely free
moment of beauty that you witnessed

Writing Prompts with an Element of Suspense

is being stalked by an unknown assailant
wakes up with no memory of the past 24 hours
receives a series of mysterious, threatening letters
discovers a hidden room in their house filled with grotesque objects
is trapped in a strange, unfamiliar place
is being pursued by a dangerous, unknown entity
is being watched by an unknown pair of eyes
is being followed by a shadowy figure
hears strange noises in the middle of the night
finds a mysterious, unmarked package on their doorstep

Writing Prompts for Stories That Start with Dialogue

Start your story with a conversation between two characters who are:

meeting for the first time
meeting each other for the first time in ten years after graduation
trying to solve a problem
discussing a secret
trying to keep a secret from someone else
discussing their future plans
trying to make amends after a misunderstanding
reminiscing about the past
trying to persuade each other of something

Writing Prompts That Ask “What if?”

What if you:

woke up one morning with the ability to fly? How would you use this ability?
could time travel? Where would you go and why?
woke up one day to find that everyone in the world had switched bodies? How would you cope with this?
could read minds? How would you use this ability?
suddenly had access to unlimited wealth? How would you use this wealth?
could talk to animals? How would this change your life?
were the only person on Earth who knew how to speak a certain language? How would you use this knowledge?
could turn invisible at will? How would you use this power?
developed the ability to communicate with the spirits of the dead? How would this change your life?
could teleport anywhere in the world instantly? How would you use this ability?

Funny Writing Prompts for High School

wakes up to find that they’ve turned into a giant chicken
has a magic lamp that grants them absurd wishes
becomes the world’s worst superhero
accidentally becomes the president of the United States
is chased by a giant hamster
discovers that their reflection is actually an alternate dimension
becomes a world-famous rapper after a misunderstanding at a karaoke bar
becomes the world’s worst detective
is constantly followed by a cloud of bees
becomes the world’s worst secret agent

Do you have a brother or sister in middle school? Our middle school writing prompts are a great way for them to get into the flow of creative writing effectively.

Journal Prompts for High School Creative Writing

Write about a time when:
you felt particularly proud of yourself
you had to confront your greatest fear
you had a moment of clarity or realisation
you felt that life was wonderful
Write about a place that holds special meaning for you.
Write about a person who has significantly impacted your life.
Write about a moment of beauty that you witnessed.
Write about a dream you had and can’t forget.
Write about a memorable experience you had with a friend.

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts

Write an essay about a/an:

significant event in your life and how it has impacted you
person who has inspired you and why
current issue that is important to you and why
time when you had to overcome a challenge and how you did it
place that you have visited and why it was meaningful to you
hobby or activity that you are passionate about and why
book, movie, or TV show that has had a significant impact on you and why
social issue that you feel strongly about and what you are doing to make a difference
goal that you have set for yourself and how you plan to achieve it
person who has made a positive impact on your community and how they did it

Adventurous Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who goes on a:

solo hike in the wilderness and becomes lost
treasure hunt and faces unexpected challenges along the way
safari and encounters a rare and dangerous animal
white water rafting trip and gets stranded in the wilderness
mountain climbing expedition and faces unexpected challenges
scuba diving trip and discovers a hidden underwater world
hot air balloon ride and gets carried away by the wind
skydiving trip and has to make an emergency landing
parasailing trip and gets caught in a storm
snowboarding trip and gets caught in an avalanche

Science Fiction Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who is:
given a device that can predict the future
the only survivor of an alien invasion
recruited by a secret organization to fight against an alien threat
the only one who can communicate with newly-discovered alien species
the only one who can stop a group of rebels from taking over the world
the only one who can save the world from an asteroid heading towards Earth
the only human on a distant planet
Write a story about a character who travels through time and encounters their future self.
Write a story about a character discovering a portal to an alternate dimension.
Write a story about a character who is given a device that allows them to control time.

Scary Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who is
being stalked by a demon
trapped in a haunted house
haunted by the ghost of a loved one
terrorized by a clown
Write a story about a character who
discovers a cursed object and starts having strange, terrifying experiences
starts seeing strange, supernatural creatures in their dreams
hears a lady cry every night, but no one is there
notices a strange doll appear in their house, not knowing where it came from
listens to neighbours report they’ve been seeing a toddler running around the house, but your character lives alone

Fantasy Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who
discovers that they are a witch or wizard with magical powers
finds out they are the chosen one, destined to save the world from an ancient evil
realises they are a fairy or other mythical creature
is given a magical object that can grant wishes
discovers a magic book with secrets to the universe
receives a magical potion that transforms them into a different creature
accidentally stumbles into a world where everything is the opposite of what they know
gains a legendary staff that gives them the power to control the elements
enters a magical, mythical land ruled by an evil king
discovers that they are the reincarnation of a mythical hero

Need more Creative Writing prompts? Check out this article entitled “ 308 Creative Writing Prompts To Unlock Your Writing Skills .”

How Else Can I Improve My Creative Writing Skills?

1. read widely.

Reading improves your writing skills by exposing you to different

And Techniques you can incorporate into your own writing.

Did you know reading widens your vocabulary? It does! And vocabulary is an essential aspect of effective writing. The more words you know, the more effectively you can communicate your ideas.

Also, reading helps improve your comprehension and critical thinking skills. Both of these are valuable for analysing and synthesising information. So you’ll learn how to present ideas clearly in your writing.

2. Write Regularly…and Don’t Stop!

Think of writing as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes! Writing regularly makes you feel more comfortable and confident.

What’s more, it helps you develop your own voice and style. Once you hone the aspects that make you unique , you’ll stand out more!

Writing regularly also gives you a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. And you’ll be able to refine your writing accordingly.

The more you write, the better you will become at it. So maximise our creative writing prompts and make time to write every day. Even if it’s just for a few minutes!

3. Experiment with Different Writing Styles

Do you know that experimenting with different writing styles and techniques expands your writing skills? Why? Because doing so makes you a versatile writer. Able to adapt your style to different situations and audiences.

For example, writing poems even when you’re not used to poetry-writing forces you to think . To imagine and create! As a result? You get out of your comfort zone and explore. And you’re better able to reimagine your craft.

What are the common writing styles?

Descriptive – often uses similes and metaphors to help the reader experience the writing (e.g. songs, poems)
Narrative – flashbacks and foreshadowing are common elements of a narrative style with a clear, fleshed-out plot (e.g. novels)
Or Persuasive writing – convinces the reader to believe what the writer believes (e.g. essays, sales copy)

4. Join a Writing Community!

What better way to keep you motivated than by joining a writing community? A writing community provides support and encouragement. Being surrounded by like-minded folks passionate about writing can be a great source of inspiration!

Plus, you’ll be exposed to different writing styles and techniques. Which can help you expand your horizon and help you become a more versatile writer.

Joining a writing community can also be a great way to get feedback on your writing. Helping you identify areas for improvement.

Finally, do you know a writing community can be a great source of information and resources? Members often share valuable writing tips and strategies.

5. Enrol In A Creative Writing Course

What is one of the most effective methods in fast-tracking you to massive improvement in your writing skills? Taking a creative writing course!

Why does taking a creative writing course help you improve your writing skills? Because you’ll learn from experienced writers. While having the opportunity to practice writing under the watchful eye of expert tutors.

Creative writing prompts are useful for high school students looking for inspiration for new and original ideas. You can overcome writer’s block by tapping into your creativity in a new and exciting way.

These prompts will challenge and inspire you. So give them a try and see what amazing stories and ideas you can come up with!

Understanding the Writing Prompts

Even the fun writing prompts for high school students can be confusing, so to avoid any misunderstandings, ask yourself the following questions about your prompt:

What is the type of writing required by the prompt?
What is the purpose of the writing based on the prompt?
What is the key information that needs to be found?
What additional materials are related to this prompt?
Who are my target readers?
What style, language and structure would be most suitable for this writing?

Once you give clear and accurate answers to the mentioned questions, you will have a basis for your paper. At this point, when you know what your paper is aimed at and how it should be arranged, it is time to plan your paper by preparing an outline. It will help you to control the structure of your paper, stay within the word limit, and address all the most significant issues in your essay.

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Creative Writing Prompts for Everyone

For better or for worse, it is only possible to acquire skills of any kind through intensive practice. If you would like to excel at writing, you should take up a writing prompt every day and work on it. If you are out of creative ideas at the moment, you can use the fun writing prompts for high school provided in the list below. All you need to do is simply choose one and start writing!

Find 10 top prompts for high school students listed below.

TED Talks Among the hundreds of Ted talks available online, you can always choose one that inspires you. Browse the topics, find something that interests you, watch one of the talks and reflect on it in your paper. You can extend on the discussion by adding your ideas and expressing your vision of the problem. Another way to use TED talks for inspiration is see a couple of videos related to some topic and then prepare your own talk in the same style.
Video Prompts You can find a number of fun creative writing prompts for high school in short videos on YouTube. Simply search for “creative writing prompts” and see the dozens of available clips. They will entertain you, help you get fresh ideas, and set a direction for your writing. It is better to rely on videos with many good feedbacks or many views.

You may be interested: Poem Writing Help

Speeches Celebrities give speeches on different occasions, such as winning an award, presenting a new album, describing their professional experiences, or thanking the colleagues and friends for support. A great idea for an engaging class activity is to fantasize about giving a speech at a ceremony. Let the students prepare speeches of any style and character and present them in front of the audience, and you will see how creative, resourceful, and amusing the teenagers can get.
Blog Writing Teenagers today are fascinated by social nets and their bloggers in different spheres. They watch live streams, stories, videos, and read posts of famous bloggers, dreaming of becoming popular too. However, composing an informative and engaging post or content for video is not an easy task, which not all the high school students realize. A nice prompt for high school is blog writing, which can be presented either in written form or in the form of a recorded video. Let the pupils try themselves as influencers and see what it feels like to address the audience with some recommendations.
Fold and Pass This ancient game is good for all ages and interest groups, so it will never fail you. Give the students a piece of paper and let one person write the beginning of just 1-3 sentences. Then, he or she must fold the written part and pass the paper to the next participant who will continue writing, and so on. The whole class can take part, and in the end, really curious stories may be composed. A little suggestion here is to limit the story to some topic or genre, so that the students would have one direction to follow. This activity is both useful and entertaining, and its biggest advantage is that while the students are playing, they are still improving their writing skills. Besides, it will set a friendly and hilarious atmosphere in class.
Writing Challenge To encourage students to write with enthusiasm, offer them to take part in some kind of challenge. You can use any rules and topics, as long as they call for creative writing. For example, you can make a “100 words a day” challenge, where the participants are not allowed to pass a day without composing 100 words. To encourage them to try better, you can publish the best 3 pieces in the school newspaper every week. This is just an example, and you can come up with many other versions of fun writing prompts for high school.
Radio Program Notes You have probably heard one of the radio programs where they read the short messages or letters from the audience. There can be a topic given for the listeners to reflect on, or there can be an expert who reads the messages and gives pieces of advice to their authors. A great idea for a writing activity in class is to make the students prepare their messages for a radio. There should be a topic and a word limit, and one or two students can be chosen as moderators. In class, you can use the prepared messages and letters to play a full live radio program. Such exercise will be both fun and educational.
Cross-Cultural Letters High school students have not travelled a lot yet, and they may not be aware about the striking cultural differences that exist in the world. You can offer them to explore some country on another continent, where everything is different: the climate, the traditions, the culture, and other things. You can contact the school representatives from a small village in France or from the capital of Belarus and offer your students to send letters to teenagers who study there. They will try their best to compose good letters, and their enthusiasm will increase once they receive replies.
Emails In high school, the students are not very familiar with email communication, as it is mostly used for business messaging. However, most of them are likely to need the skills of email writing in the future. Thus, a good idea would be to introduce email composing for formal and non-formal purposes and let the students practice it.

TOP 7 Fun Writing Prompts for High School Students

Coming up with fun writing prompts for high school can be hard if you are overwhelmed with many tasks and lack time to prepare some engaging activities. That is why, it is good to have a good old list of prompts prepared for the times when you need a solution that will not fail you. Below are the top writing prompts that will interest every high school student:

Share about your family holiday traditions.

How would communication on Earth change if telepathy would be available to everyone?

Write a poem about your favorite objects at home.

Write a poem to wish your friends happy holidays.

Write a short story about the adventures you had with your friends.

Write about mishaps that happened to you and your way of overcoming them.

Write a descriptive essay that presents your personality.

These prompts may seem simple, but the secret of their effectiveness lies in their familiarity to everyone and everywhere. Even when the students are drained out of any creative ideas, they can turn to one of these topics and have something to say about either of them. Besides, writing about trivial things in a new, original way is the best exercise for improving one’s writing skills. Moreover, it develops a deeper understanding of things and non-standard perception of the world.

23 Fun Writing Prompts for High School

Write a formal letter to a colleague informing about a change in the company’s policy.

Imagine you have appeared in 50 years future time. Describe what you see and how the world has changed.

If you had a chance to become your native town’s mayor, what would you do on that post?

Write about the pets you had during your life.

Do you like superheroes? Why? How do you think they impact children’s mindset?

Write about the unusual places you would like to visit.

What is the book you liked to read as a child?

Write about your childhood friendships.

Which plant do you associate yourself with and why?

Do you see interesting or weird dreams? Give examples.

What would you do if you could be invisible for one day?

Would you like to travel to other planets? What do you expect to see there?

Imagine you have woken up in 19 th century. Describe your experiences.

What do you think your future family will look like?

Write a poem about your first love.

What would you suggest to the ten-years-old yourself?

What are you afraid of?

How do you imagine yourself when you grow old?

Which traces of character you cannot tolerate in others?

Write about the luckiest coincidences that happened to you.

Have you ever been embarrassed? Tell about some situations.

What would you like to say to the 70-years-old yourself?

Did you ever do anything you regret?

13 Social Media Writing Prompts

Do you think people have a higher or a lower self-esteem because of social media use?

How are the real personalities different from the ones presented in their online profiles?

From what age do you think children should be allowed to use social media?

Do you think the underage persons should have a restricted access to certain features online?

How much time do you spend in social nets? Would you like to change this amount of time?

Do you keep in touch with all your online friends?

How important is self-presentation in social media for socialization?

Have you met any real life friends through online media?

Have you ever felt underrated in social media?

How important is the number of likes in social nets?

Which social net is the most popular among your peers? What makes it convenient?

What could be the reason for you to close your social media accounts?

Have you ever had a fake account online? How did you use it?

5 Internet & Tech Writing Prompts

Should programming be taught in basic school programs?

How safe do you think Internet surfing is?

Do you share personal information through the web?

How do you protect your data online?

Is it possible to remain anonymous in the Internet today?

7 Music Writing Prompts

What are the top 5 songs you have been listening to lately?

Which music style do you prefer? What exactly fascinates you about it?

Has music ever facilitated any emotions for you? Give examples.

Where do you get the new music from?

Does one’s taste in music depend on what they have heard at home as children?

Does your choice of music depend on its popularity?

How does the development of technology impact the development of music styles?

5 Video Games Writing Prompts

Are esports good for the players? In what ways?

Which video games have you mastered?

Which qualities have you gained through playing video games?

Is violence in esports acceptable?

Are the age limitations for games always adequate?

10 Books & Reading Writing Prompts

Name the top 3 books that have formed your personal philosophy.

What is the book you are reading currently?

Is there a particular genre you prefer? Why?

Who is your favorite author?

Make a list of 10 books every peer of yours must read.

If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

Do you read all the books required at school? Do you like them all?

Have electronic books replaced the printed ones?

Why do people need to read?

Did any book help you with any hard experiences in your life?

5 Prompts on Arts

Is art important for you personally? Why?

Is art important for the mankind? Why?

Which art mediums and styles do you prefer?

Do you think understanding art is important?

Should art in museums be in open access to everyone?

5 Prompts about School

What would you change in your studying schedule?

How do you think students should be motivated to study better?

Are after class activities important? Why?

Which time of the day do you think is the best for effective learning?

What do all students dream about?

10 Learning & Studying Prompts

Do you think students should study at home after classes?

Is individual work better than group projects? Why?

Do you often need help with your home task?

Have you ever had a tutor? Did they help you?

Are you active during the class?

What kind of testing do you think is the most important?

Do you think the class has to be divided based on the students’ success?

How many students should be in class for an effective learning?

What is your favorite discipline?

Do you have enough time to socialize and rest after your home assignments?

All the mentioned fun writing prompts for high school will definitely add inspiration to your writing process. The last suggestion to consider for you is to practice writing as much as possible. Even if you have no topic and no one to check your paper , simply write your flow of thoughts down. This simple everyday exercise will help you to polish your skills and develop your understanding of the writing process.

In any case, never make long pauses waiting for inspiration to dawn on you: it is your responsibility to find some engaging ideas to write about!

Tips for Students
Writing Ideas
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55 Creative Writing Activities and Exercises

Have you ever heard these questions or statements from your students?

I don’t know where to begin.
How can I make my story interesting?
I’m just not creative.
What should my story be about?

If so, you won’t want to miss these creative writing activities.

What Are Creative Writing Activities?

Activities that teach creative writing serve as drills to exercise your student’s writing muscle. When used effectively, they help reluctant writers get past that intimidating blank paper and encourage the words to flow.

When I think of creative writing exercises , writing prompts immediately come to mind. And, yes, writing from a prompt is certainly an example of a creative writing activity (a highly effective one).

However, writing prompts are only one way to teach creative writing. Other types of activities include games, collaboration with others, sensory activities, and comic strip creation to name a few.

Unlike writing assignments, creative writing activities aren’t necessarily meant to create a perfectly polished finished project.

Instead, they serve as more of a warmup and imagination boost.

Picture-based writing exercises are especially fun. You can download one for free below!

get this picture prompt printable for free!

How to use creative writing exercises effectively.

When teaching creative writing , the most effective exercises inspire and engage the student.

Remember that worn-out prompt your teacher probably hauled out every year?

“What I Did This Summer…”

Cue the groaning.

Instead of presenting your student with lackluster topics like that one, let’s talk about ways to engage and excite them.

For Kids or Beginners

Early writers tend to possess misconceptions about writing. Many picture sitting down for hours straight, polishing a story from beginning to end.

Even for experienced writers, this is next-to-impossible to do. It’s preconceived ideas like these that overwhelm and discourage students before they’ve even started.

Instead of assigning an essay to complete, start with simple, short writing exercises for elementary students such as:

Creating comic strips using a template
Talking out loud about a recent dream
Writing a poem using rhyming words you provide
Creating an acrostic from a special word

Creative writing exercises don’t have to end in a finished piece of work. If the exercise encouraged creative thinking and helped the student put pen to paper, it’s done its job.

For Middle School

Creative writing activities for middle school can be a little more inventive. They now have the fundamental reading and writing skills to wield their words properly.

Here are some ideas for middle school writing exercises you can try at home:

Creating Mad Lib-style stories by changing out nouns, verbs, and adjectives in their favorite tales
Storyboarding a short film
Writing a family newsletter
Creating crossword puzzles

For High School

Your high school student may be starting to prepare for college essays and other important creative writing assignments.

It’s more critical than ever for her to exercise her writing skills on a regular basis.

One great way to keep your high schooler’s mind thinking creatively is to have her make “listicles” of tips or facts about something she’s interested in already.

Another fun and effective creative writing exercise for high school is to have your student retell classic stories with a twist.

List of 55 Creative Writing Activities for Students of All Ages

No matter what age range your students may be, I think you’ll find something that suits their personality and interests in this list of creative writing ideas. Enjoy!

Using only the sense of hearing, describe your surroundings.
Write a paragraph from your shoes’ point of view. How do they view the world? What does a “day in the life of a shoe” look like?
Imagine what the world will be like in 200 years. Describe it.
Write a letter to someone you know who moved away. What has he or she missed? Should he or she move back? Why?
Make up an imaginary friend. What does he or she look like? What does he or she like to do?
Create a story about a person you know. Use as many details as possible.
Write a poem that describes a place you have been.
Soak up the season you’re in with seasonal creative writing prompts. Here are some ideas for fall and winter .
Write a song where each line starts with the next letter in the alphabet.
Create a list of words related to something you love.
Write a short story based on a true event in your life.
Rewrite a chapter of your favorite book from the antagonist’s point of view.
Write a letter to your future self. What do you want to make sure you remember?
Go on a five-senses scavenger hunt. Find three items for each sense. Create a story using the items you found.
Create a story around an interesting picture ( try these fun picture writing prompts! )
Find an ad in a magazine or elsewhere and rewrite the description to convince people NOT to buy the advertised item.
Write a story using the last word of each sentence as the first word of the next.
Describe everything you’re sensing right now, using all five senses.
Write a list of animals A to Z with a one-sentence description of each one. Feel free to include imaginary animals.
Design your dream room in detail.
Write a script of yourself interviewing a famous person. Include his or her answers.
Describe what high school would be like if you lived on the moon. What would you be learning about? How would you be learning it?
Describe a day in the life of a famous person in history. Include both mundane and exciting details of things they may have experienced on a normal day.
Pick up something on a bookshelf or end table nearby. Now write a commercial script for it to convince your audience that they absolutely must own this thing.
Plan a birthday party for your best friend. Describe the decorations, food, and everything else.
Write a very short story about three siblings fighting over a toy. Now rewrite it twice, each time from a different character’s perspective.
Tell a story from the point of view of a pigeon on a city street.
Create a menu for a deli you’ll be opening soon. Name each sandwich after something or someone in real life and list the fillings and type of bread.
Pretend you just became famous for something. Write 3 exciting newspaper headlines about the topic or reason behind your newfound fame.
Keep a one-line-a-day journal. Every day, write down one thought or sentence about something that happened that day or how you felt about the day.
Have you ever had a nightmare? Write what happened but with a new ending where everything turns out okay (perhaps the monster was your dad in a costume, preparing to surprise you at your birthday party).
Write a “tweet” about something that happened to you recently, using only 140 characters.
Take an important event in your life or the life of someone in your family. Write one sentence answering each of the 6 journalistic questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
Set a timer for 5 minutes and write nonstop, starting with the words “I remember.” If you get stuck, write “I remember” again until you get unstuck.
Pick something you use often (a toothbrush, your desk, etc). Then tell the story of how it was invented. If you don’t know, make something up.
Choose a princess or hero and write a one-paragraph story about him or her traveling to a distant land.
Pretend you are a tour guide for a local attraction. It can be a library, a park, or a museum, but it could also be a place that wouldn’t normally hold tours (such as an arcade). Write a speech about what you tell your tour group as you walk around the attraction.
Create a marketing brochure for your favorite activity or fun place to go.
Make a list of 10 future story settings. Write one sentence describing each. For example, “ in the dark, musty cellar of my grandmother’s house, surrounded by dried-up jars of canned peaches… ”
Make a list of foods included in a dinner party catered by the world’s worst cook, describing how each course looks, smells, and tastes. Include your reactions while eating it.
Write out your own version of instructions for playing your favorite game.
Pretend you’ve lost your sight for one night. Describe going out to eat at a restaurant, using smells, textures, and sounds to tell your story.
Write a script for an interesting phone conversation in which the reader can only hear one side.
Tell the story of an object someone threw away from the perspective of the person who tossed it out. Then tell the story of that same object from the perspective of a person who finds it and deems it a treasure.
List your 3 least favorite chores. Pick one and write a one paragraph detailing why you can’t possibly complete that chore ever again.
Write an excerpt from your dog’s diary (pretend he keeps one).
Write the script for a movie trailer—real or imagined.
Create an acrostic for a holiday of your choice.
Pretend you’re the master of a role-playing game, describing a sticky situation in which the other players now find themselves. Describe the scenario in writing.
Compose a funny or dramatic caption for a photo.
Parents, place a textured object in a box without letting your student see it. Have him or her reach in, touch the object, and then describe how it feels.
Write lyrics for a parody of a song.
Make a list of 10-20 songs that would be played if a movie was made about your life.
Describe the sounds, smells, sights, and textures you’d experience if you went to the beach for the day.
Write an election speech with ludicrous and impossible campaign promises.

One of the best ways to encourage students to write regularly is by providing fun creative writing activities .

They serve to encourage both the habit and mindset of writing with imagination. If you need extra help with that, check out Creative Freewriting Adventure :

bring excitement into your student’s writing – no prep required!

About the author.

Jordan Mitchell

Grades 6-12
School Leaders

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10 Creative Writing Activities That Help Students Tell Their Stories

Lower the stakes and help them get started.

Share your story message written on three post it notes

“I don’t have a story. There’s nothing interesting about my life!” Sound familiar? I don’t know a teacher who hasn’t heard students say this. When we ask our students to write about themselves, they get stuck. We know how important it is for them to tell their own stories. It’s how we explore our identities and keep our histories and cultures alive. It can even be dangerous when we don’t tell our stories (check out this Ted Talk given by novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and share it with your students for more on that). Storytelling is essential for every subject, not just English Language Arts; students dive deeper and engage when they practice thinking about how their own stories intersect with historical events, civic engagement, and the real-world implications of STEM. These 10 creative writing activities can work in every subject you teach:

Here are 10 of our favorite story telling activities that inspire students:

1. write an “i am from” poem.

A students I Am From creative writing activities

Students read the poem “I am From” by George Ella Lyon. Then, they draft a poem about their own identity in the same format Lyon used. Finally, students create a video to publish their poems. We love this one because the mentor text gives a clear structure and example that students can follow. But the end result is truly unique, just like their story.

2. Design a social media post to share an important memory

collage of historical images creative writing activities

How can you use your unique perspective to tell a story? We want our students to learn that they are truly unique and have stories that only they can tell that other people want to hear or could relate to or learn from. In this activity, students watch two Pixar-in-a-Box videos on Khan Academy to learn about storytelling and perspective. Then, they identify an interesting or poignant memory and design a social media post.

3. Create an image using a line to chart an emotional journey

How do you show emotion using a single line? In this activity, students watch a Pixar in a Box video on Khan Academy to learn about how lines communicate character, emotion, and tension. Then they experiment with these aspects as they write their story. We love using this for pre-writing and to help students explore their story arc. Also, for students who love to draw or learn visually, this can help them get started telling their story and show them that there are many different ways to tell a story.

4. Tell the story behind your name

Sharing the story behind our name is a way to tell a story about ourselves, our culture, and our family history. And if there isn’t a story behind it, we can talk about how we feel about it and describe what it sounds like. In this activity, students use video to introduce themselves to their classmates by discussing the origin of their name. This project asks students to connect their names (and identities) to their personal and familial histories and to larger historical forces. If you’re looking for a mentor text that pairs well with this one, try “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros .

5. Develop a visual character sketch

Give students the time to create a character sketch of themselves. This will help them see how they fit into their story. In this lesson, students create a visual character sketch. They’ll treat themselves like a character and learn to see themselves objectively.

6. Create a webpage to outline the story of your movie

Building a story spine is a great way to show students how to put the parts of their story in an order that makes sense. It’s an exercise in making choices about structure. We like this activity because it gives students a chance to see different examples of structure in storytelling. Then, they consider the question: how can you use structure to set your story up for success? Finally, they design and illustrate an outline for their story.

7. Respond to a variety of writing prompts

Sometimes our students get stuck because they aren’t inspired or need a different entry point into telling their story. Give them a lot of writing prompts that they can choose from. Pass out paper and pencils. Set a timer for fifteen minutes. Then, write 3-4 writing prompts on the board. Encourage students to free-write and not worry about whether their ideas are good or right. Some of our favorite prompts to encourage students to tell their story are:

I don’t know why I remember…
What’s your favorite place and why?
What objects tell the story of your life?
What might surprise someone to learn about you?

8. Create a self-portrait exploring identity and self-expression

Part of what makes writing your own story so difficult for students is that they are just building their identity. In this activity, students explore how they and others define their identity. What role does identity play in determining how they are perceived and treated by others? What remains hidden and what is shown publicly?

9. Film a video to share an important story from your life

Encourage students to think about how to tell the story of a day they faced their fears. Students consider the question: How can you use different shot types to tell your story? They watch a video from Pixar in a Box on Khan Academy to learn about different camera shots and their use in storytelling. Then, they use Adobe Spark Post or Photoshop and choose three moments from their story to make into shots. We love using this to help students think about pace and perspective. Sometimes what we leave out of our story is just as important as what we include.

10. Try wild writing

Laurie Powers created a process where you read a poem and then select two lines from it. Students start their own writing with one of those lines. Anytime that they get stuck, they repeat their jump-off line again. This is a standalone activity or a daily writing warm-up, and it works with any poem. We love how it lowers the stakes. Can’t think of anything to write? Repeat the jump-off line and start again. Here are some of our favorite jump-off lines:

The truth is…
Some people say…
Here’s what I forgot to tell you…
Some questions have no answers…
Here’s what I’m afraid to write about…

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30 Creative Writing Prompts for Teens | Fun Journal Topics

If you are looking for the best writing prompts for middle school or high school, you are at the right place! We have the 30 most creative writing prompts for teens. You can use these topics for writing assignments or journal writing. Middle school journal prompts or high school journal prompts make it easier for instructors to guide the students, and they also make it easier for students to keep a journal without having to overthink what the

topic is going to be about. So, continue reading to get the best writing topics for journals and writing activities .

Creative Writing Topics for Teens

What is Writing Prompts?

Writing prompts are topics or questions that will work as a fun guide to writing or keeping a journal. If you want your students or yourself to enjoy writing and get in the habit of keeping a journal, it is most helpful to use fun writing prompts. It doesn’t have to be journals. You can use these writing topics for assignments, quick write, brainstorming, short stories, and more. The point of these topics is to make writing more fun! So, these can be helpful for a middle school class and high school writing classes or ESL writing activities.

Take a look at this post if you are looking for writing topics for ESL beginners .

Creative Writing Prompts for Teens Part 1

Check out the list of the 30 most creative and fun writing prompts for middle school and high school students.

How are you different online and in real life?
What is something that everyone else believes to be true but you don’t?
Choose your favorite machine, and explain how it works.
Describe snow to someone who has never seen it. Use at least five adjectives when describing snow.
Write a letter to a person you really like (it can be a parent, friend, someone you secretly admire, or partner). Include three reasons why you like that person in the letter.
What are ten things that make you happy and why?
What is a good friend?
What does it mean to be a family?
If you could thank one person from history, who would it be and why?
If you could go back in time and say one thing to your mother or father, what would it be and why?
Describe the best present you’ve received. What was it, and who gave it to you?
Write a letter to yourself in the future (one year from now).
Would you rather be able to only read books forever or watch movies forever?
Describe your favorite restaurant. Would you tell other people about the place?
What was the song that you listened to the most last year (check the music streaming platform you use)? Why was it your favorite song?

Journal Writing Topics for Teens

Creative Thinking & Writing Prompts Part 2

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Choose five symbols or objects that represent you. Explain how they represent you.
What are three things you want to achieve before 30?
If you didn’t have to worry about salary or cost of living, what do you truly want to study at university?
Describe a perfect vacation. Where is the destination, and who would you go with?
What is your role in your family?
Write a poem about friendship.
What is one reason you look forward to becoming an adult?
Describe a time when you would have rather made a different choice. What were the options and consequences?
What do you do when you feel depressed or lonely?
Would you rather know everyone’s secrets or not know any secrets?
What is your favorite subject in school, and what is your least favorite one? Explain why.
Would you rather have many okay friends or a few very close friends?
Explain your ideal date.
Describe a time when you had to do detention or got grounded.

Journaling with Creative Writing Prompts for Teens

Students tend to feel pressured to comply with what is popular among teens. This affects them in a way to lose opportunities to express themselves and stay true to who they really are. This is where journaling can really help. Journaling is a great way to reflect on who you are and concentrate on yourself without having to worry about others’ opinions. No one will judge what they write in their journals. Therefore, it gives an opportunity for students to think, reflect, learn, and be creative. Most importantly, they will have fun while doing this! That’s the great part of journaling with fun writing prompts.

Not only will students have a chance to learn about themselves, but they will also have a chance to think hard about topics that they have never done in the past. That is why as an instructor, you want to provide students with some challenging topics that can also be fun! It will really help students develop thinking skills, comprehension skills, writing skills, and analyzing skills.

Journaling is a very powerful way to make your students better writers . Encourage your teen students to support their responses with details and examples. Providing students with samples could help.

Fun Writing Activities

If you are looking for additional writing activities than journaling, check out these two options.

3 Things Writing Activity

Put students in pairs and make everybody write down 3 things. Then, have them exchange the paper with their partners. With the list of 3 things provided by their partners, each student has to write a short story. It doesn’t matter if it is silly, serious, or sad. It will heavily depend on what the three things are. If you want to make this activity a little bit more challenging, have a time limit and make sure students finish their stories within that time.

Learn more about the 3 things writing activity.

Round Robin Story

This is a very fun writing activity that requires everyone to contribute to creating a story. Everyone starts a story off with, “Once upon a time….” After writing the first sentence, everyone will pass their paper to the person on their right. The next person has to continue the story based on what the previous person has written. When there are only two or three more turns left until all the papers go back to the original writer who started the first sentence, let the students know that they should prepare to wrap up the story. Have fun reading the collaborative stories!

Learn more about the Round Robin Story writing activity.

Good Writing Prompts for Teens

FAQs About Writing Prompts for Teens

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about high school and middle school writing prompts.

What are some writing prompts for high school?

Three good writing prompts for high school students:

Describe your favourite subject and least favourite subject.
What would you study at university if you didn’t have to worry about money?
Write a poem about your high school life.

What are the three types of writing prompts?

The three types of writing prompts are descriptive, narrative, and expository. Descriptive topics ask writers to create or describe an experience or thing. Narrative topics ask writers to tell a story about a real or made-up scenario. Lastly, expository topics ask students to provide information about a given topic.

What are some good journal topics?

Good journal topics provide a chance to reflect on yourself and think creatively. Check out some examples of good journal topics:

Writing Prompts for Teens: Join the Conversation

What are your thoughts on these top 30 writing prompts for teens? What is your favourite topic? Do you regularly keep a journal or diary ? If there is a good writing topic for teens, let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.

About Jackie

Jackie Bolen has been teaching English for more than 15 years to students in South Korea and Canada. She's taught all ages, levels and kinds of TEFL classes. She holds an MA degree, along with the Celta and Delta English teaching certifications.

Jackie is the author of more than 60 books for English teachers and English learners, including Business English Vocabulary Builder and 39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities for Teenagers and Adults . She loves to share her ESL games, activities, teaching tips, and more with other teachers throughout the world.

You can find her on social media at: YouTube Facebook Pinterest TikTok LinkedIn Instagram

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Creative Writing Unit for High School Students

My creative writing unit for high school students allows for adaptations and for fun! With plenty of creative writing activities, you’ll have flexibility.

If you are looking for a creative writing unit, I have ideas for you. When I taught middle school, I sprinkled such activities throughout the school year. As a high school teacher, though, I taught an entire creative writing course. With no textbook and very little established activities, I largely worked from a blank slate.

Which. . . turned out well. I love teaching creative writing!

ELA Specific Classes

Older students often can choose electives for their ELA classes, and Creative Writing is a popular class. I’ve condensed my ideas into one post, so I organized the ideas by creative nonfiction and fiction writing and added pictures to organize this information for you.

EDIT: This post about my creative writing unit for high school writers has exploded and is about three times as long as a normal blog post. If you’d like to skip around to get inspiration for teaching creative writing, you can use the pictures and headings as guidance.

ANOTHER NOTE: I attempted to outline the days I spend on each topic, but several factors went into my estimates. First, each class differs in what they enjoy and what they dislike. If a class dislikes a specific topic, we will wrap it up and move on. If a class has fun with an assignment or needs more time to work, the days might vary.

What are the key elements of a creative writing unit?

Key elements of a creative writing unit include introducing different writing genres, teaching basic writing techniques, encouraging imagination and creativity, providing writing prompts and exercises, offering constructive feedback and revision opportunities, and fostering a supportive writing community.

How can we organize such activities?

Starting with creative nonfiction has worked for my classes, small pieces like paragraphs. I believe the success is because young writers can write what they know about. Then we can switch to fiction for the second quarter. Again, the days spent on each assignment varies, and I honestly do not stress about creative nonfiction being nine weeks and fiction being nine weeks.

All of the material listed below is in my newly updated Creative Writing Bundle . The pieces are sold separately, but that creative writing unit includes bonus material and a discount.

Ok, settle in! Here are my ideas about teaching creative writing with high school students.

creative activities for writing students

First Week of School for a Creative Writing Unit

The first day of school , we complete activities that build awareness into the classroom environment about “creativity.” Do not shy away from setting a foundation of support and understanding as you engage with young writers. During my first creative writing classes, I neglected to spend time establishing expectations and community. The following semester, the time invested early paid off with engaged students later.

Those first days, we also discuss:

Published vs. private writing. I tell writers they may share whatever they like with me and the class. As a community of writers, we will share with each other. Most of our writing will be public, but some will be private.
A community of writers. Writing and sharing ideas requires maturity and acceptance. Not everyone will agree is largely my motto (about negotiables, not human rights), and I stress with students that they may read and provide feedback with topics in which they do not agree.
Routines. Writers write. That sentence might sound silly, but some people believe that humans are born with a skill to write or they are not. Writing well takes practice. The practice can be short and unconnected to a larger product. I typically begin each week with a quick writing prompt , and we share our responses, which of course, builds that community of writers.

Whatever you are teaching—a creative writing unit or a creative writing class—spend some time establishing your expectations and goals with your students. Laying a foundation is never a waste of time! In fact, I believe so much in the power of the first week of a creative writing class that I have a blog post devoted to the concept.

Time: 2-3 days

First weeks: creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction seems to be the genre of our time. Memoirs, essays, and hermit-crab essays flood bookstores and journals.

When students read captions on social media, profiles of their favorite artists, or long Threads, they are reading creative nonfiction. Not only should students be able to dissect this form of writing, but they should also be able to write in our society’s preferred genre.

Below, I’ve outlined creative nonfiction activities that work with teenagers.

Nonfiction Narrative Writing

Writing narratives (and meeting those standards) are trickier with older students. As a teacher, I struggle: Students will often tell me deep, meaningful, and personal parts of their lives, and I am supposed to grade those writings!

When students write a narrative , I address this situation immediately. Share with writers that their narrative ideas are strong (I believe that to be the truth!), and that in no way are we grading their ideas. Rather, we want their excellent narratives to be communicated in the best light; therefore, we will provide guidance about the structures of narrative writing.

The topic for a nonfiction narrative varies. Often, students write about themselves as learners or as community members. Framing students in a positive way allows them to explore their strengths in life and to build confidence as writers.

Time: 7-9 days

a creative writing unit for high school students should include plenty of fun activities

Object Essay

An object essay might sound like a “blah” type of assignment, but the simplicity allows students to push past their normal experiences. An object essay is simple, so they can experiment with their writing.

What object? I have assigned this essay several ways. For instance, I have brought in a very plain object (like a rock) and had students explain it. I like this approach because students can work together to discover the best descriptions.

Another way, my preferred way, is to allow students to choose the object. Students write about a coffee cup, water bottle, car keys, or bus pass. When students choose, the essays are richer with meaning.

Neither approach disappoints me, though! With a plain object, students must stretch themselves to be creative. Judge what your class needs and get students writing!

Time: 3-4 days

add a creative writing unit to your ELA classroom

How-to Paper

No, not a “how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” paper. A fun and meaningful how-to paper can encourage classes as they see themselves as experts.

What I like about a how-to paper is students get to be the expert in their paper. Finding a used vehicle to buy? Shopping for a formal event? Saving money? Cleaning a closet? Selling at consignment stores? Each writer has an area in which they shine, and a how-to paper allows them to share their knowledge with others. They write about “behind the scenes” or little known secrets.

Of all the creative writing activities, I assign the how-to paper early. It builds confidence in young writers.

Time: 5 days

Sell this Apple

Why an apple? When I wanted students to creatively sell something, I searched for something they could all have in common but sell in different ways. I wanted classes to have one object but to witness the multiple approaches for advertising. Apples (which I could also afford to bring to class) fit nicely.

What do students sell when they “sell an apple”?

Dips for apples.
Apples for preschool snacks.
Charcuterie apple boards.
Apple crisp.
Red and green apple rainbows.

Basically, students can create a marketing plan for multiple age groups and other demographics. For instance, they can write a blog post about safety in cutting pieces for young children (and complete some research in the process). They can then “promote” a local apple orchard or fruit stand.

Another advertisement is an apple pie recipe for a Thanksgiving brochure for a supermarket.

When I gave students something simple, like an apple, they ran with the idea. Then, we can share our ideas for selling apples.

A profile is difficult to write, so this assignment is normally my last assignment of the quarter. Before we switch to writing fiction, we apply all our concepts learned to writing a profile.

Profiles are more than summaries of the person. Writers must take an angle and articulate the person’s traits utilizing Showing vs. Telling. Of all creative writing assignments, the profile, might be the most difficult. I place it in the middle of the semester so that writers understand our goals in class but are not tired from the end of the semester.

Time: 10-12 days

Final weeks: fiction

Fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, romance: Students consume a variety of fiction via books, movies, and shows. Fictional creative writing activities invite young writers into worlds they already consume.

Below, I’ve outlined some that work with teenagers.

send students around the community or school for this creative writing project

Alternative Point-of-View

Grab some googly eyes or some construction paper and send students loose. (A few guidelines help. Should students remove the googly eyes from the principal’s office door?) Have them adhere the eyes to an inanimate object to make a “being” who learns a lesson. They should snap a picture and write a quick story about the learned lesson.

What type of lesson? Perhaps an apple with a bruise learns that it still has value and is loved with blemishes. Maybe a fire extinguisher realizes that its purpose is important even if it isn’t fancy.

Honestly, the creativity with the googly eyes adhered to inanimate objects is so simple, but it always is my favorite event of the semester. I officially call it the “ alternative point-of-view ” activity, but “googly eyes” is how my writers remember it.

Time: 2 days

creative writing activities for high school students

Create a Superhero with a Template

A superhero does not need to wear a cape or fancy shoes. Rather, in this creative writing activity, students build a superhero from a normal individual. When I created the activity, I envisioned students writing about a librarian or volunteer, but students often write about a grandparent (adorable).

Since students enjoy graphic novels, I wanted students to experience making a graphic novel. The colorful sheets allow students to add their ideas and words to pages that fit their messages.

After students create a comic book, they will also write a brief marketing campaign for a target audience. Learning about who would buy their graphic novel typically leads them to parents and librarians which should lead students to discover the importance of reading. The advertising campaign additionally serves as a reflective component for the initial activity.

imagination is a key part of creative writing lessons

Product Review

Product reviews and question/answer sections are a genre all their own. SO! Have students write reviews and questions/answers for goofy products . Students will find a product and write several reviews and questions/answers.

This quick activity lends itself to extension activities. Once, a teacher emailed me and said her school bought some of the goofy products for a sort of “sharing” day with the school. Since students have access to pictures of the item, you can make a “catalog” for the class out of a Canva presentation and share it with them and your colleagues.

Here are a few examples:

Banana slicer .
Horse head .
Wolf shirt.

Aside from the alternative point-of-view activity, the product reviews remain my personal favorite part of a creative writing unit. Writers find random products and write goofy workups that they share with the class.

Time: 3 days

Character Creation

Creating a well-rounded and interesting character requires prep work. The brainstorming part of the writing process, the pre-writing? We spend lots of time in that area as we create fleshed out characters.

I like to start with a multiple-choice activity. We begin my imagining the main character. Next, students take a “quiz” as the character. How does the character eat? What sort of movies does the character enjoy? hate? After the multiple-choice activity, they can derive what those pieces explain about their characters. Finally, they can begin to brainstorm how those pieces will develop in their story.

Flash Fiction

Flash fiction is a simple, short story. Writers might cheer when they hear I expect a 300-word story, but often, they discover it is a challenging assignment from class. A large part of a creative writing unit is giving students a variety of lengths so they can practice their skills under different circumstances.

Historical Fiction

Historical fiction is a popular genre, and classes are familiar with many popular historical fiction books. I find it helpful to have several books displayed to inspire students. Additionally, I read from the books to demonstrate dialogue, pacing, theme, and more.

Since my historical fiction activity takes at least two weeks to accomplish, we work on that tough standard for narrative writing. To that end, these activities target the hardest components:

Pacing within a narrative.
Developing a theme .
Building imagery .
Creating external conflicts in a story.
Establishing a setting .

First, I used pictures to inspire students, to get them brainstorming. Second, I created those activities to solve a problem that all writers (no matter the age!) have: Telling vs. Showing. I found that my writers would add dialogue that was heavy on explanation, too “world building” for their narrative. The story sounded forced, so I took a step back with them and introduced mini-activities for practicing those skills.

Third, the above creative writing activities can EASILY be assignments independently for short and fun assignments. I teach them with historical fiction because that activity is at the end of the semester when my expectations are higher, and because students enjoy writing historical fiction so they are invested.

But! You can easily add them to another narrative activity.

Time: 10-12 days

A clean tabloid! Tabloids are largely replaced by online social sharing creators, so they are fun to review with students. Students might not be familiar with tabloids at the grocery store checkout, but they are familiar with catchy headlines. They will be completely ready to write a tabloid !

To ensure a clean tabloid, I ask students to write about a children’s show, something scandalous happening from a cartoon. The results are hysterical.

Time: 4 days

Children’s Book

I have two introductory activities for the children’s book. One, students answer questions about a mentor text (another children’s book). Two, students evaluate the language of a specific book to start them in their brainstorming.

My students write their children’s book as a final activity in class as it requires all the elements of creative writing. When a school requires me to give a final exam, students write a reflection piece on their children’s books. If you are looking for a finale for your creative writing unit, a children’s book is a satisfying ending as students have a memorable piece.

Time 10-12 weeks

Final note on creative writing activities and bundle

I intended for this post to inspire you and give you ideas for teaching either a creative writing unit or a creative writing class in ELA. My first time through teaching creative writing, I worried that my lessons would flop and that students would not find their groove with me. I found success, but with modifications, I formed a cohesive semester.

The first time through, I did not frontload information and expectations. (Spending time at the start of class is my biggest message! Please establish groundwork with students!) I also did not provide concrete enough guidelines so students understood the differences between the assignments. After a few semesters, I developed my creative writing unit . With a variety of activities and an appropriate amount of structure, I found success, and I hope you do too.

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4 ways to get students excited about writing

Growing up, I liked to write. More specifically, though, I liked to write about things I liked. While I could crank out a decent enough essay like the best of them, my real passion was in creative writing. Buried in the depths of my office closet is a box holding over a dozen spiral-bound notebooks and hundreds of loose pieces of paper (all adorned with my middle-to-high-school handwriting) spinning elaborate tales of drama and adventure, mostly inspired by my favorite fantasy novels.

A few pieces, though, stand out. There’s the short story I wrote for my honors English class in tenth grade, when we were studying the works of Edgar Allan Poe. My teacher gave us the option to either write an essay comparing the themes in multiple examples of Poe’s work or to demonstrate our understanding of the class material by writing an original short story mimicking Poe’s style. I chose the latter. And I got an A.

Looking back at my high school career, I realize how extremely fortunate I was to have English teachers who understood the importance of “leaning in” and getting to know me as a person. The Poe assignment was one of many in which my teachers found ways to tailor writing tasks so that they felt more interesting and relevant. It was their ability to create buy-in on my part that resulted in my not only wanting to write for school but also in my learning to see myself as a writer both inside and outside of the classroom.

There’s a great deal of focus in writing instruction on making sure students consider their audience. Just as we want students to know their audience, however, we, as teachers, need to also know our students so that we can empower them to use their writing voices. Here are four tips on how to go about this in your classroom.

1. Assign authentic writing tasks

My colleague Julie Richardson recently wrote about engaging student interest with authentic writing tasks . Namely, she calls out the importance of having students consider what they want to accomplish with a particular piece of writing, in addition to what their teacher wants. This callout is in keeping with research by scholars including Steve Graham and Sarah Freedman , among others, that demonstrates the importance of considering what sorts of writing tasks students might engage in outside the classroom. Authenticity is an excellent way to get students excited about writing.

By integrating authentic writing tasks into your curriculum, you can help your students see the value in school-based writing. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Making a thank-you card for a friend or family member
Using picture books to write simple stories
Creating comic books or graphic novels
Summarizing and critiquing movies or episodes of TV shows
Documenting a family story or recipe
Reporting on the unexpected origins of an everyday item
Leaving effective online reviews for products
Writing a cover letter for a potential job
Drafting requests to state and local representatives

2. Get to know your students

To get started identifying authentic writing tasks for your students, ask yourself: who are my students? What drives and motivates them? What are their strengths? What are their opportunities for growth? Why should knowing how to write—and to write well—matter to them?

One simple way to start the getting-to-know-you process is by asking students to complete a writer reflection survey. This not only allows you, as the teacher, to learn more about how your students view and approach writing, but it also gives them a chance to self-reflect and consider, perhaps for the first time, how they view and approach writing.

To gauge shifts in students’ perspectives, I recommend administering your survey multiple times (e.g., once at the beginning of the year and once at the end, or between major writing assignments). Some examples of potential statements you might include, asking students to indicate their level of agreement from strongly disagree to strongly agree , are:

I can stay focused when I write.
It’s hard for me to remember how to spell words.
I write differently depending on who will read my writing.
I like adding extra features to my writing, like illustrations or labels.
I know who I can go to for help with my writing.
I usually understand the directions in school writing assignments.
I see myself as a writer.
I believe writing is important in everyday life.

For younger students, consider adapting your survey into a classroom activity that gets students up and moving around the room. Designate certain parts of the classroom as “response areas,” then read each statement aloud and ask students to walk to the response area that best matches how they feel about the statement. For example, students who strongly agree with the statement “I can stay focused when I write” might go stand by the back wall, while those who strongly disagree might go stand up front by the whiteboard, while those somewhere in between could stand in the middle of the classroom.

Note, however, that a survey such as the one described here is simply the beginning of an ongoing conversation you’ll need to have with your students as you discover more about who they are and how you can help them feel more confident as writers.

To keep the conversation going, consider asking students to keep a writing journal that they regularly share with you and in which you can provide feedback and answer questions. You might also incorporate peer review sessions into your lessons, as these sessions allow students to hone their writing skills and share their work with peers. Both of these approaches can get students excited about writing and help them begin to see themselves as writers who understand and appreciate the value of writing in their everyday lives.

3. Prioritize an asset-based approach

When getting to know your students, take particular care to use an asset-based approach; that is, do not mistake difference for “less than.” For example, you may have students in your classroom who are more comfortable and fluent expressing themselves in a language other than English. You might have students with disabilities like dyslexia, which can make accurate spelling a challenge. You might have students with ADHD for whom the act of sitting down and quietly drafting a paper is difficult. Does that mean these students have less potential as writers than their peers? Of course not! It simply means that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing instruction.

Multilingual students, for whom weaving together words from two or more languages can be as natural as breathing, should be allowed and encouraged to incorporate translanguaging into their writing process. Students with dyslexia or for whom spelling is otherwise a challenge should be provided access to accommodations like spell check and speech-to-text, which research shows can lead to improved writing outcomes. Students with ADHD, meanwhile, may benefit from more explicit guidance on what is expected, prewriting activities such as mind mapping, and having a larger writing task broken down into smaller micro-assignments, as noted by educator Tracy Collins on Edutopia .

The importance of an asset-based approach can’t be overstated and is an invaluable way to get students excited about writing.

4. Aim for inclusivity

Consider that you may also have students whose lived experiences are such that they don’t find some popular assigned prompts relevant. For example, a student who spent their summer at home or working to help support their family probably isn’t going to feel particularly seen if asked to write about what sort of vacation they took while school was out. A student with same-sex parents, if tasked with writing about their family, may wonder if the instructor has considered the possibility that not everyone’s family includes a mom and a dad and whether it’s safe (or even allowed) to talk about their home life at school. Similarly, a female student of color might roll her eyes at being assigned an essay on yet another book written by a white male author who lived in England hundreds of years ago and who never had to deal with the intersection of racism and sexism she faces on a daily basis, or to consider how living at that intersection shapes one’s lived experiences.

Once you’re aware of the multitude of identities in your classroom, you can tailor your writing assignments appropriately. For example, instead of asking students to write about where they may (or may not) have gone on summer vacation, you can ask them to write about the ideal summer vacation, that is, what would they like to do? Where would they like to go, and why? Similarly, if asking students to write about their families, make sure you’ve established that your classroom is a safe space in which diverse family structures are celebrated and are well-represented in the books or other written texts you analyze with your class. Finally, do an author audit of the books assigned as part of your curriculum. Are they all (or mostly all) white male authors? If so, look into alternative books that you could use instead that might be more interesting and relevant for your students. Not sure where to start? Try your school librarian, who will more likely than not be happy to help!

It can be challenging to get students excited about writing. But as those delivering and differentiating the curriculum, it’s vital that teachers consider the needs, interests, and identities of their students. It is only by knowing them well that you can assign truly authentic writing tasks.

When choosing prompts and designing assignments, I encourage you to make a habit of asking yourself, how can I make this something my students want to write about? How can I cultivate a sense of community in my classroom so that each student-writer can show up comfortably and confidently as their whole, authentic self?

You may also wish to read through NWEA’s stances on writing , which contain a wealth of research-backed information demonstrating what effective, equitable writing instruction looks like.

As noted at the beginning of this article, it can be difficult to get students excited about writing. But if you’ve ever seen that spark in a student’s eyes the moment they realize they’re a writer, then you know it’s well worth the effort to try.

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150+ Fun Creative writing prompts for high school
100+ fall writing prompts for kids and adults. Fun & Imaginative
High School Writing Prompts Worksheets
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Great Writing Prompts for High School Students
Fun writing activity for students with A2/B1 level. Can increase

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Best High School Writing Prompts of 2023
Write a story about a misunderstanding. Write a story about a strange family tradition, with at least two characters from the family narrating in the course of the story. Write a story about someone who would be described, above all else, as: kind. Write a story that centers on an Instagram post. Write a story that spans a month during which ...
55 Journal Writing Prompts High School Students Love
Below you'll find 55 journal writing prompts. High school students will find plenty to say about these topics, but I suggest setting ground rules for writing and setting a time limit (with timer projected). First: Write for the whole time. Second: Don't worry about making sense or making sure what you write is perfectly-edited.
100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle & High School
Some high school students dream of writing for a living, perhaps pursuing an English major in college, or even attending a creative writing MFA program later on. For other students, creative writing can be useful for school assignments, in English and other subjects, and also for preparing their Common App essays.In a less goal-oriented sense, daily freewriting in a journal can be a healthy ...
Great Writing Prompts for High School Students
35 Great Writing Prompts for High Schoolers. Use this List of Great Writing Prompts in Your High School Classroom ( or elsewhere!)—. A unique list of 35 thought-provoking writing and journal prompts especially for high school students. These prompts dig a little deeper than most so check them out today! The high school years are a confusing ...
16 Meaningful Writing Activities that Engage Students
2. RELEVANT WRITING. Picture this. Energetic lyrics fill the air as students listen, think critically, and analyze them. Or, students snap a photo of a page from an independent reading book, grinning as they annotate it with gifs, text, emojis, and more. Spotify and Snapchat are extremely popular apps for students.
30 Creative Writing Prompts High School » JournalBuddies.com
Vampire. Monkey. Ghost. Snake. 2. Many students love TED Talks and there are a lot of great ones to choose from. Launch the " Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator " Talk. Consider what makes it powerful. Choose a tidbit of wisdom or insight from your own life and create your own TED Talk.
4 Engaging Writing Tasks for High School Students
4 Engaging Writing Tasks for High School Students. Short, authentic writing tasks can encourage high school students to compose richer long pieces. By Shawna Kay Williams-Pinnock. July 30, 2021. Cultura Creative / Alamy Stock Photo. It's quite likely that many of your students dislike writing. After all, they're often expected to compose ...
50 Fun Prompt Writing Ideas for High School Students
Here are some relatively simple ways to incorporate narrative writing in your high school classroom with 10 Prompt Writing Ideas: Write a Journal Entry- Students can respond to someone from a story as if they know the character personally. Create an Advertisement- Students can include a story from a "buyer" as an ad technique.
37 Creative Writing Prompts for High School
Write a haiku about the first class you have at school each day. Use your school name, mascot, and colors to write a rhyming school spirit chant. Write an ode to your favorite outfit or piece of clothing. Write down the first 10 words you think of and then use each word in one line of your poem. Write one verse about each year of high school.
43 Dynamic Writing Prompts for High School
Writing prompts for high school can be tricky to navigate. You don't want to be too basic, but maybe not too niche, either. Find exactly the prompt you need here.
Teach Creative Writing In High School With 10 Fun Activities
Here are the few ways how high schoolers can benefit from creative writing -. 1. Imagination. When you write creatively, you expand your imagination by creating new environments, scenarios, and characters. This way, you are also boosting and stretching your imagination, as well as "thinking out of the box.".
10 Fresh Writing Prompts for High School English
Here are 10 writing prompts for high school students to get them excited about writing in the new year. 1. The TED Talk. There are a lot of amazing TED Talks out there that students love. Launch a TED Talk unit by showing this one, from Tim Urban, called " Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator .". Talk about what makes it powerful.
10 Fun Writing Activities for Reluctant Writers
7. Comic Strip Script. The Purpose: Give your students the chance to improve their dialogue writing skills and work on their understanding of character development in this fun activity which combines writing with a series of visual elements. The Process: There are two ways to do this activity.
31 Free High School Writing Prompts for 9th Graders
35 Good Research Topics for High School Students; 30 Creative Writing Prompts for High School Students; 9th Grade Writing Worksheets; Until next time, write on… If you enjoyed these High School Writing Prompts for 9th Graders, please share them on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Pinterest. I appreciate it! Sincerely, Jill journalbuddies.com creator ...
Creative Writing Prompts For High School Students
Writing Prompts for Stories That Start with Dialogue. Start your story with a conversation between two characters who are: arguing. meeting for the first time. meeting each other for the first time in ten years after graduation. trying to solve a problem. discussing a secret. trying to keep a secret from someone else.
150+ Fun Creative writing prompts for high school
Write a funny school chant using the mascot of your school. Write down the first 10 words that come to your mind. Now create a sentence out of it. Open your news feed and write about the first post that comes up. Pick a video game name, for example, 'Fortnite'. Now create a poem using that title.
Creative Writing Activities for High School
Reading and writing naturally fit together, and Melissa from Reading and Writing Haven provides Five Creative Responses to Reading. She details more than simple reading responses. For both fiction and nonfiction, Melissa explains how booksnaps, poetry, one-pagers, journal prompts, and music analysis can bring meaning to what students read.
Fun Writing Prompts for High School: Find Inspiration
The fun writing prompts for high school collected in this article will facilitate a more enjoyable and effective writing process for you. With creative writing prompts for high school, you can come up with new ideas for your papers, see the assignments from a new angle and produce impressive pieces of writing. Moreover, you will gain better ...
55 Creative Writing Activities for All Ages
Write a story using the last word of each sentence as the first word of the next. Describe everything you're sensing right now, using all five senses. Write a list of animals A to Z with a one-sentence description of each one. Feel free to include imaginary animals. Design your dream room in detail.
Creative Writing Activities To Help Students Tell Their Story
Here are 10 of our favorite story telling activities that inspire students: 1. Write an "I am from" poem. Students read the poem "I am From" by George Ella Lyon. Then, they draft a poem about their own identity in the same format Lyon used. Finally, students create a video to publish their poems.
30 Fun Writing Prompts for Teens (Middle School & High School)
The three types of writing prompts are descriptive, narrative, and expository. Descriptive topics ask writers to create or describe an experience or thing. Narrative topics ask writers to tell a story about a real or made-up scenario. Lastly, expository topics ask students to provide information about a given topic.
5 Creative Writing Activities Students Love
flexible creative writing activities for elementary, middle, or high school; Adjustments you may want to make: you can also use these as a "fast finisher" prompt or a warm up. incorporate them into your creative writing class. perfect for the end of the school year or before a break begins; students can trade story starters and start over.
Creative Writing Unit for High School Students
Students write about a coffee cup, water bottle, car keys, or bus pass. When students choose, the essays are richer with meaning. Neither approach disappoints me, though! With a plain object, students must stretch themselves to be creative. Judge what your class needs and get students writing! Time: 3-4 days.
4 ways to get students excited about writing
Documenting a family story or recipe. Reporting on the unexpected origins of an everyday item. Leaving effective online reviews for products. Writing a cover letter for a potential job. Drafting requests to state and local representatives. 2. Get to know your students.

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100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle & High School – 2024

What are Creative Writing Prompts?

How to use Creative Writing Prompts

Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School Students (Continued)

100 Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School Teens

Prompts using memories

Objects and photographs as creative writing prompts

Senses and observations as creative writing prompts

Songs, books, and other art

Abstract ideas as creative writing prompts

Prompts for playing with narrative and character

Middle School & High School Creative writing prompts for playing with fact vs. fiction

Prompts for starting with dialogue

Final Thoughts – Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School & High School

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4 Engaging Writing Tasks for High School Students

Incorporate Knowledge-Building Activities

Offer Authentically Rooted Writing Assignments

Provide Mentor Texts

50 Fun Prompt Writing Ideas for High School Students

50 Prompt Writing Ideas for High School Students

10 Narrative Prompt Writing Ideas

10 Satirical Prompt Writing Ideas

10 Expository Prompt Writing Ideas

10 Argument Prompt Writing Ideas

10 Rhetorical Analysis Prompts

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37 Creative Writing Prompts for High School

Creative High School Poetry Writing Prompts

Fun Writing Prompts for Creative Fiction in High School

Writing Prompts for Short Works of Creative Fiction

Writing Prompts for Long Works of Creative Fiction

Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts for Teenagers

Visual Writing Prompts for High School Creative Writing

High School Creative Writing Games Using Prompts

Spark an Idea With Writing Prompts

Teach Creative Writing In High School With 10 Fun Activities

What Happens When Creative Writing Is Put To Use?

1. Imagination

2. Empathy and Communications skills

3. Clarification of Thoughts

4. Broadens Vocabulary and gets a better understanding of reading and writing

5. Building Self-Belief

Creative Writing Activities That Will Strengthen Your Writing Skills

1. Free Writing