Teacher Tips

Creative Writing Prompts for Young Authors

children writingEnjoy these prompts. Here are a few tips:

 

  • Don’t worry about being perfect
  • Let your imagination run wild
  • Write about things that excite you
  • Read your story out loud to catch fun details
  • Have fun with your writing!

 

Imagine…

  • You wake up one morning and discover you can talk to animals. What conversations do you have, and what adventures unfold?
  • You find a magical key that can open any lock in the world. What would you unlock, and what would you discover?
  • Write a story about a day in the life of your favorite toy when no one is looking.
  • You’ve been chosen to be the first kid to live on a space station. Describe your first week there.
  • A mysterious package arrives at your doorstep with no return address. What’s inside, and how does it change your day?

 

About You…

  • Describe your perfect day from start to finish. What makes it so special?
  • If you could have any superpower, what would it be? How would you use it to help others?
  • Write about a time when you felt proud of yourself and why.
  • Imagine you could trade places with an adult for a day. Who would you choose, and what would you do?
  • What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from a friend or family member?

 

Explore…

  • ]You discover a hidden door in your school that leads to a completely different world. What does this world look like?
  • Write a story about a friendship between two completely different creatures.
  • If trees could talk, what stories would they tell about the world they’ve seen?
  • Create a new invention that would make life easier for kids your age. How does it work?
  • Describe a magical creature that no one has ever seen before. What are its special abilities?

 

Connect with Others…

  • Write about a time when you helped someone and how it made you feel.
  • Imagine you could solve one problem in your community. What would it be, and how would you fix it?
  • Describe a moment when you acted brave, even though you were scared.
  • If you could send a message to kids around the world, what would you say?
  • Write about a time when you learned something new about yourself.

 

Have Fun…

  • You’ve been chosen to design a new holiday. What would it celebrate, and how would people celebrate it?
  • Write a story about what happens in your classroom after everyone goes home.
  • Imagine you can shrink to the size of an ant for a day. What adventures would you have?
  • If your favorite food could talk, what would it say about being eaten?
  • Create a story about a day when everything goes wrong but turns out amazing in the end.

 

Hope you enjoyed stretching your imagination and coming up with new ideas. Why not share your stories with a favorite teacher or some of your friends?

Do you have any suggestions for story prompts? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

Motivate Middle-Grade Readers With Phenomena

As a teacher, I know the importance of getting students interested in a book before they read the first line. When students are motivated to read, it flips the script from a book the teacher is “making me read” to a book “I want to read.” Using a prediction strategy, such as a picture walk (quickly browsing the images in a book), can ramp up student interest.

Yet, have you ever excited students about a book using information not in the book? What if you could share information with your students from outside sources that would activate curiosity and make connections to science or social studies? Count me in for those cross-curricular connections, right?!

Let’s Try the Phenomena Pre-Reading Strategy!

Before we learn about the phenomena pre-reading strategy, take a moment to experience it yourself.

Look at the animated map below. What do you notice? What do you wonder? (If it doesn’t appear in your browser, you can view it here.)

 

Imagine sharing this map with students and having a notice-and-wonder discussion before reading They Are Here! How Invasive Species Are Spoiling Our Ecosystems by Roland Smith.

How could this type of introduction benefit your students?

What is the Phenomena Pre-Reading Strategy?

Engaging with phenomena, like the lionfish map, is a strategy I use to motivate students to want to read and to prepare them to read, a middle grade book–especially nonfiction. According to the Next Generation Science Standards, “Natural phenomena are observable events that occur in the universe and that we can use our science knowledge to explain or predict.” Snowflakes falling, a python eating a deer, and a plant growing toward light are all natural phenomena. Phenomena occur all around us every day, and a science best practice involves asking our students to “notice and wonder” about those phenomena.

Side Note: “phenomenon” is singular and “phenomena” is plural. I hope someday to not have to stop and think for 10 full seconds about which to use in a particular sentence. Today is not that day.

I apply phenomena best practices during English Language Arts (ELA) by sharing a phenomenon related to the core concept in a nonfiction book before we even crack open the cover. The phenomenon could be a photograph, a video, a map, an audio file, or a graph. Then I simply ask: What do you notice? What do you wonder?

We refer to this as a “notice and wonder routine” in science. The less information you give students and the less you lead them with my questions, the better. This is a time for students to call up their background knowledge and to think deeply about what they are seeing and/or hearing. So, I encourage you to stick with: “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”

You can hold a simple discussion, or you can record student ideas on a chart. While students read, they can refer back to the chart and even add to it when the text answers their questions.

Let’s Review a Few Examples!

Here are a few examples of phenomena introductions paired with middle grade nonfiction:

Before reading Who Gives a Poop by Heather Montgomery, enjoy a discussion about this photo:

https://www.waynesword.net/images/scat4b.jpg You’ll have to forgive me. I live with two boys and information about poop is a hit in our house. Oh, and here are the answers in case you’ve never taken a deep dive into poo identification: https://www.waynesword.net/scat.htm

Before Reading Unseen Jungle: The Microbes That Secretly Control Our World by Eleanor Spicer Rice, notice and wonder about these photos: https://telegrafi.com/en/after-seeing-these-pictures%2C-you-won%27t-sleep-without-brushing-your-teeth/amp/ These mysterious pictures may serve the dual purpose of motivating students to read and brush their teeth!

Before reading The Great American Dust Bowl by Don Brown, share dust bowl photos with your students. They will certainly start wondering, “How did this happen?!”

https://infosys.ars.usda.gov/WindErosion/multimedia/dustbowl/dustbowlpics.html

However, you don’t have to limit yourself to phenomena. Sometimes showing students media related to what they are about to read will be enticing. In Total Garbage: A Messy Dive into Trash, Waste, and Our World, Rebecca Donnelly begins by describing a location that is not open to the public: Treasures in the Trash. Conducting a notice and wonder with three photographs of this museum-of-sorts will pique curiosity. And it will certainly provoke deep thoughts about trash when students find out what the images depict.  https://www.mas.org/events/treasures-in-the-trash-group-1/

Plus, there are no photographs in the book, so it is an effective way to demonstrate how conducting research beyond the book can lead to interesting information that enhances the reading experience.

Let’s Discuss Discussions!

If you are used to responding to student ideas with phases like, “Great idea!” or “Hmm…I’m not sure about that one,” I encourage you to take a different approach with phenomena discussions. It is important to facilitate these discussions without judging or favoring specific answers. Your classroom should be a safe space for all students to share their ideas, and you don’t want students to feel that you seek one “correct” answer.

Using Talk Moves, like the following, facilitate open discussion: “Would anyone like to add on to what Angel said?” and “Who has something else they would like to share?” You can find a list of Talk Moves here: https://inquiryproject.terc.edu/shared/pd/Goals_and_Moves.pdf 

If Talk Moves are new to you, don’t be afraid to print the document and keep it by your side as you get used to letting students lead the discussion. And most importantly, don’t answer your students’ wondering questions. Let them read to find out!

Not only does beginning with a phenomenon motivate your students to read, it also provides all students with an equitable experience to build on as they read the text.

So, go ahead, try a phenomenon introduction for your next middle grade read. I think you’ll find it works phenomenally well! (Sorry, I had to!)

Middle Grade Examines the Constitution!

By Robyn Gioia, M.Ed

Constitution Day, September 17, 1787: The day the U.S. Constitution was signed by founding fathers such as George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Jay at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

What began as newspaper comic strips in the late 1800s evolved into stories spanning several pages. From there, stories grew into the superhero genre with the likes of Superman and Batman, to name a few. Later the word “graphic novel” was coined for depicting larger works that can be more serious in nature. Since then, graphic novels have grown to represent every form of genre, from entertainment to nonfiction to academically examining controversial topics such as the Constitution.

The Constitution, a document that was written in the 1700s and for a different time in history remains the heart of American law. Many argue the Constitution needs to be rewritten. The graphic novel fault line in the constitution takes middle school kids through the history and nuts and bolts of the Constitution in easy to understand scenarios and graphics. It is definitely a topic that makes you question the way things work and how you think about them. The book has garnered “starred” reviews from top book reviewers such as Kirkus, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly.

Meet Cynthia Levinson, teacher, writer, mentor, and author of the middle-grade graphic novel, fault line in the constitution.

(Yes, fellow teachers, the book title does NOT use capitals!)

Robyn: Welcome to From The Mixed Up Files. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. It’s always fun to connect a person’s life with their books.

Cynthia: I have two daughters, two SILs, and four grandchildren. And every book my husband and I write includes a thank you to “our thoroughly splendid children,” regardless of whether or not they helped with the book! For most of my professional life, I worked in education—teaching from K-12 and higher ed and also in state-level education policy. As a writer, I still consider myself an educator. I like to cook, but only in spurts; otherwise, a kitchen-sink salad is my favorite dinner. Nothing with okra—blech.

Robyn: A good salad. Someone after my own heart. I’d pass on the okra, too! So tell me, why write a middle-grade graphic novel on the U.S. Constitution?

Cynthia: The idea to write Fault Lines in the Constitution came from one of my editors—Kathy Landwehr at Peachtree, who had given her father a copy of one of my husband’s books (a law professor) on the Constitution. He liked it so much that Kathy asked if we would write a version for kids. Our editor at First Second/Macmillan, Marc Siegel, requested a graphic novel  version! So, happily, the ideas came to us from publishers.

Robyn: How did you choose what topics to include?

Cynthia: Great question! How on earth did we?! Well, my husband, Sanford (Sandy), has written extensively on problems with the US Constitution so I began by reading his books more closely and winnowing his massive knowledge base to kid-size bites. We introduce each of the 20 issues in the book with a true story. For instance, we begin the chapter on habeas corpus—the right that the Constitution gives Americans to be released from prison if the government cannot show a cause—with a story about a pandemic. See Resources for Teachers.

Robyn: How does a topic on the Constitution relate to middle grade kids?

Cynthia: Although it might seem that the Constitution has nothing to do with middle-graders, that’s not such a tough question. Our government—especially, the way it fails to operate these days, thanks to our Constitution—affects kids’ lives from what they eat for lunch (that’s Chapter Two, called “Big States, Little Say: The Senate”) to whether they have to be vaccinated (Chapter 19) to whether they can vote (Chapter 8). Fault Lines makes abundantly clear the relationship between the Constitution and everyone’s everyday lives.

Robyn: Well, your book has certainly given us a lot to think about. Thank you very much for introducing us to your middle grade, graphic novel fault line in the constitution. Readers will be happy to know there is a plethora of resources available, everything from a teacher’s guide, to lesson plans, to a blog.

Resources are plenty and interesting! The Blog delves into topics such as:

Your Turn! How Would You Write a New Constitution?

What IS “General Welfare?”

What’s a Vice President To Do?

The King is Dead

Resources:

Discussion guides and Activities  (Peachtree teacher guide)

Standards based lessons

Blog

Games

Interviews

Presentations

Websites

Bibliographies