Improving Your Students Creative Writing
Are your students writing just to get the job done or are they writing with the reader in mind? Do they struggle to make their writing interesting and entertaining?
As a writer, I love going into classes during writing lessons and working with the students to invigorate them and to help them to improve on their work. Writing excites me and I love to see this reflected in the students. I want my students to be proud of their efforts and take pride in their work.
Ways you can encourage quality creative writing in the classroom;
Have environment print and posters around the room for students to use – high modality words, other words instead of said, grammar and punctuation marks
Encourage your students to make their creative writing more interesting, descriptive and entertaining to the reader by using adjectives. This way the reader can begin to have a visual and create a mental picture of the characters, the setting and the action. It allows the reader to visualize and create a more vivid image in their mind, taking the reader to another place/world, imagining the scene. It is important that adjectives are not overused though. Sometimes it is better to choose a stronger noun.
Use a planning storyboard sheet with boxes for students to draw their images that show parts of the narrative. This can then be used as a prompt for sequencing their stories
Discuss with students and finish the sentence - ‘A successful writer will…
Use writing prompts to invigorate the students – Once Upon A Picture is a great website to use with image prompts and questions
Using visuals such as Pobble 365 which has a different image each day with prompts. Great to encourage descriptive writing
Using short Pixar animations can be a great stimulus for writing
Use Random Emoji Generator – create a story using the random emojis you get
Teach students how to edit their writing for spelling, punctuation, and figurative language in order to improve the quality of their writing
Give each student a writing prompt folder – which includes sight words appropriate for their stage level, an editing checklist, text type structure checklist, examples of synonyms, their individual writing goals
Encourage students to avoid using the words ‘very’ and ‘really’. These are basic and overused words. Encourage your students to be more creative
Encourage the use of more interesting sentence starters, rather than ‘‘I’ or ‘we’.
Share novels and examples of great descriptive writing with the class such as Tashi by Kim Gamble
Use the phrase ‘show, don’t tell’ to encourage the students to use their senses to describe rather than just tell it how it is which adds drama to their writing
Improve basic paragraphs in a close passage by adding adjectives to create a more interesting text
Choose a character, time, place and event and make a story incorporating each. Have examples of each on cards. Students select from the pile and create a story around them
Work on expanding upon and building your students vocabulary in class. Have a word of the day or introduce a word of the week on their homework sheet. Brainstorm and display in the classroom ‘other words for…’ Instead of said, bad, small, look, went, nice, big, like, good, old, and walk. How could you describe a baby, dress, house, soup, balloon, brother?
Encourage adventurous word use and risk-taking e.g relentless, transient, seldom, turbulence, stifle, alternatives, potential…
Students go back and highlight the nouns in their writing. What words could be used to describe that noun?
View courses on the Storybird website where students undertake challenges to become better writers.
Have students plan out their story first before writing it – first have students write their character profiles; name, nickname, age, hair colour, distinguishing features, strengths, weaknesses, family, personal qualities or use the STEAL analysis - speech, thoughts, effects on others, actions and looks. Then have them create a setting scenario
Create scene profiles as a plan. Map out the main events – create imagine in mind, write down all the ideas that come.
Before writing - put an item in a bag or use picture cards. Students use three adjectives to describe it so others can guess what they have. Another activity - pick five adjectives to describe yourself
Keep writing time short so students can focus on one paragraph a day - intro, building tension, complication, resolution. By keeping it short students can solely grasp the idea of that paragraph rather than rushing just to smash out a story.
It is important to make sure writing is an enjoyable time of the day with no pressure on your students. Be positive, praise your students writing, and offer two stars and one wish in order to improve their work. This way you will set your students up for success.
What initiatives or ideas do you use with your students to encourage great creative writing? We would love it if you joined the conversation and left a comment below.