creative writing prompts middle school

creative writing prompts middle school

Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School Students

1. Introduction

The writing prompts that are in this book are the greatest way to guide your middle schooler towards the path of great writing. The prompts are open-ended, so your child can be as creative as they would like. No more tough assignments or nagging your child to write aimlessly. These writing prompts are designed to be just the right amount of challenging for your middle schooler. They will have more fun and feel accomplished in their writing when they see how well they are doing. The prompts are perfect for the way language arts are taught today. Each prompt falls under a type of writing: narrative, persuasive, or expository. These writing assignments will help your child reflect on the material they have studied and push them to think outside the box. In no time, your child will understand fully how to execute a great essay and/or story.

2. Section One: Narrative Writing Prompts

A narrative is a brief account of events that are experienced by several different characters. While informational essays or expository writing require much more explanation and detail, a narrative traditionally is more focused on something that will be a memorable experience for the reader/audience. Adding a specific emotional experience will help form the plot of the narrative. Creative fictional narrative is largely based on the events or experiences of an author’s past, but with completely different events and outcomes. The topic could be any. It could possibly be about a family event, holiday, a party, and so on. Everyday happenings for your character can become an exciting adventure. Give it a twist and it can become anything you want it to be. An overage of creativity will help make the narrative something meaningful and memorable.

3. Section Two: Descriptive Writing Prompts

Imagine you want to run away and join the circus. But this circus is very unique! It travels slowly through a lost and enchanted forest, where many strange things can (and do) happen. Write a story of life in the circus. You may choose to write it as an exciting episode or as an explanation of what happens and why. The following are some ideas you might choose to include. A storm blows up in the middle of the night. The elephants are all afraid of storms and one of them gets loose. How do you catch him? Where is he found next day? If the storm damages the circus tent, how do the circus people arrange to repair it? What role do you play in all this? One day, quite by accident, the circus people discover a fabulous lost city in a clearing of the forest. This might be a chance for improving the circus business, but there is some risk involved. What do they find? Who is sent to investigate? How is the rest of the circus equipment brought to the city? Do you agree it is a good idea to try to stay there and if so, why? In the city the circus encounters a local tyrant who demands money. When the circus people refuse, their bearded lady is kidnapped. A ransom of 10,000 francs is set. If the circus tries to rescue her by force, they will probably have trouble with the law. How do they get her back? And what changes has this incident brought to the life of the circus?

4. Section Three: Persuasive Writing Prompts

1. School uniforms – Convince your principal whether or not students should be required to wear uniforms to school. 2. A new holiday – If you could create a new holiday, what person or event would it honor and how would you want people to celebrate it? 3. School rule – If you could change one rule at your school, which rule would it be and what would you change it to? Why? 4. Best of the Best – Many people keep small “mementos” of special things or events. These might be pictures, trophies, or souvenirs. Sometimes they are called “Artifacts That Best Represent”. Pretend that you are going to select five “Artifacts That Best Represent” you. They will be placed in a time capsule that will be opened 500 years from now. What will they be? 5. Squirrels – Some people claim that squirrels are “good for nothing”, just “rats with fuzzy tails”. They also claim that squirrels have no special skills or traits. Write a persuasive essay to convince others to see whether they should value a particular skill that you believe that squirrels (or a specific squirrel) have, and why that makes squirrels unique and valuable. 6. The last day – Convince somebody that your favorite year of school is the best to repeat.

5. Conclusion

Exploratory Writing Assignments: The student is to use the idea in the prompt as a cause or reason for whatever they are explaining or exploring. Be it a person, place, thing, or creature, the student is to try and explain something fully using questions and answers he has made up on the spot to explore. This is a great writing assignment for developing creative thought up on the spot, as well as a full understanding of the idea behind the prompt. And who knows what students may come up with when trying to answer unknown questions.

How You Would Help A Friend Writing Assignments: It is pretty straightforward; they are to write a letter to their friend. In this letter, they will be telling the friend how they would use the idea from the prompt to try and help the friend in a problem he/she may have. This is a very good way of creating writing assignments that are focused on cause and effect results of certain scenarios. This may help that student to fully understand what it is about the idea in the prompt that he finds appealing. And they will also get real-life experience of explaining to a friend how it is they might use a certain idea to help them.

Imaginative Narrative Writing Assignments: What we are trying to do here is cause for the student to write a story using the setting they created from the descriptive language assignment. This is the students’ chance to use the prompt in a way to unleash their uncensored imagination. Don’t limit how they use the prompt to tie the story to the setting, often times the best part about the student story ideas will come from the free usage of the prompt. This helps the student to imagine how certain scenarios could play out and possibly help to define what it is they exactly enjoy about the thought of certain things happening.

Descriptive Language Writing Assignments: With this assignment, students are using the prompt to create a setting. Be it real or be it fictional, the setting is the focus here. The student is to use descriptive language to the best of their ability to create the most vivid setting to elaborate on in a story. This serves to get them creating a clearer picture in their head of just what it is they would like to write about.

As a middle school language arts teacher, I have found a number of fantastic writing prompts throughout the years. To make the best use of these exciting, and sometimes funny, writing prompts in your language arts class, you must also use a few different types of writing assignments, true assignments that serve to make the best of the prompt and the students’ great potential resulting from it. Here are a few writing assignment ideas to use with these prompts. I have categorized the writing assignments in several ways. This way your students can have the full experience of what I like to call, using their prompt in a fully uncensored way. This way builds cognitive thinking and understanding of the writing prompt and the assignment itself.