Scary Good Writing

Imagine you are a reader for an essay assessment test in which the writing prompt is the commonplace “Everyone has a favorite toy. Explain why it is your favorite blah, blah, blech…“ And so as a reader you have spent the day reading essays about Wii’s, iPads, skateboards, etc. when suddenly you encounter an essay about a robot that takes its author on trips to other planets, makes him gourmet hamburgers,  and turns bullies into bunnies.  Might you score that essay a little higher than the umpteenth one you just read about the iPad? (It has been my experience that assessment readers do just that.)

Now imagine you are a student confronted with this same prompt in a school environment in which questions are usually fact-based such as “Who was the first president?” or “What is photosynthesis?” Naturally as a student you are going to start thinking factually about what your favorite toy is. You will spend valuable time deciding which toy is your favorite and then come up with three reasons why this toy is your favorite usually generic platitudes like: “it is awesome” or “it’s totally fun” followed by a boring explanation of the obvious. (I bet as a teacher you have read more than your fair share of these snoozers.)  

Now imagine you’re a teacher - oh wait, you are a teacher – Okay, as a teacher, imagine giving your students this boring prompt (after changing it. See my post: One easy step to make boring prompts exciting) and then giving them PERMISSION to MAKE UP the most wonderful, exciting favorite toy ever and write about that. By giving them permission to imagine, you break them out of the ingrained “factual’ thinking mode of the student and allow them to enter the free thinking, “imaginative” mode of the creative writer. At first, it will be tough to break them out of this factual thinking mode and enter imagination mode (especially today’s “imagination-challenged” kids who are accustomed to being entertained) but keep at it and you will see more interesting essays especially from the best writers in the class.

Lesson:  Put a prompt on the board.  

“Most of us have a special place we like to go. Think about a special place where you like to go. Explain why you like to go to that special place.”

Now modify the subject of the essay by inserting one of the following adjectives: magical, exciting, wonderful, cool, fantastic

“Most of us have a magical special place we like to go. Think about an exciting special place where you like to go. Explain why you like to go to that wonderful special place.”

Now give your students permission to make up a special place where they would love to go. It could be an undersea cave, a magical forest, etc.  This could be a classroom brainstorming session to demonstrate how ideas form or an individual lesson focused on idea formation and pre-writing.  By sticking to idea formation and pre-writing, you can practice lots of different prompts without burning kids out writing essay after essay.

Hope this helps.

Let’s face it. Most writing prompts are by design so generic they can’t help but be bland. An easy way to fix this and trigger a child’s imagination is to teach your students to add adjectives like exciting, magical, cool, etc. to the subject of the prompt.

Typical prompt:

We all have a favorite time of year. Think about one time of the year that is your favorite. Write to explain why that one time of year is your favorite.

Most of us have a special place we like to go. Think about a special place where you like to go. Explain why you like to go to that special place.

Now add two adjectives exciting and magical to describe the subject favorite time of the year and special place.

Modified prompts (one uses the same two adjectives for each reference of the subject; the other prompt uses a different adjective for each reference of the subject:

We all have an exciting and magical favorite time of year. Think about one exciting and magical time of the year that is your favorite. Write to explain why that one exciting and magical time of year is your favorite.

Most of us have an exciting special place we like to go. Think about a magical special place where you like to go. Explain why you like to go to that cool special place.

Quite a different trigger for the imagination, isn’t it? Try this and see if your students have an easier time coming up with more interesting answers to the essay question.

Caveat: it doesn’t work as well for prompts like the following, but it doesn’t hurt them, either.

We all know that it is important to eat magical and exciting healthy foods. Think about why you think it is important to eat magical and exciting healthy foods. Write to explain why you think it is important to eat magical exciting healthy foods.

We have all heard that it is important to be an exciting good reader. Think about why you think it is important to be a magical good reader. Write to explain why you think it is important to be a cool good reader.

Try it with your kids using these prompts and see if you get a little more creativity.