Because you want your students to foster diverse writing skills

  "I want to write, I just don't know what to write about."  

I wrote about using sentence starters to get kids hooked in this blog post a few weeks ago.

Sometimes it's hard for kids to get invested in writing, especially if they feel they have nothing worthwhile to write about.  You know that once they get going they'll be fine, but it's getting them started that's the hard part.  

I remember creating lists with students at the beginning of the year.  We were going to have a working set of possible topics, right?  Wrong.  Have you ever watched a student look at those and just shrug their shoulders?  Nothing seems relevant any longer, or interesting?

Quick, fun writes that keep them off balance

These are guaranteed to make your students giggle a little.  My students enjoyed these, especially if we carved out time to share with each other.  I kept these short and sweet, so most students only had 2-3 paragraphs but it got the juices flowing for other kinds of writing on other days.

What's involved?  All you need is a board with four random words or phrases on it.  Three of them are covered up.  One is showing.  

Students can write about anything they want but they have to include a donut in their story.  After a minute or two, you remove another shape to expose a second item that needs to be included.  And so on.  

Kids love it because it forces their stories to take some unexpected twists and turns.  That turns their creativity on!  Click here to join my mailing list and you'll receive five free prompts like this that you can start using immediately.

Make them take a stand

1. Everyone should be required to participate in sports.
2. Warm weather is better than cold weather. 
3. Sometimes it's okay to lie.

There are tons of statements that you can give students to take a position.  Not only are they learning persuasive/argumentative writing, but it makes them think more deeply about where they stand on an issue.  And maybe find some like-minded peers.

Use sentence stems

1. It would be easier if...
2. I was surprised to discover that...
3. I knew it wasn't going to be an ordinary day when...

Once you get your students started, now's the time to add some variety to the styles they can practice.  Read about how I used RACES for my students to work on informational, text-dependent writing here.