Sunday, February 28, 2010

Fun Writing Activities for Writing Club

Last semester I organized a creative writing club. Once a week for 1.5 hours we would write and read to each other.

Here is a list of all of the activities that we did in the club. Almost all of the activities I found off the Internet. In this posting I am just compiling them and am in no way taking credit for thinking up these ideas. All of these writing exercises were quite successful and the students enjoyed them.

Short Story
Metaphor Poem
Hands
Emotion Poem
Random Words Epigraph
6-Word Memories and Poems I
6-Word Memories and Poems II

(If you can't read the blogs, just tell me and I will cut and paste the blogs and send them to you.)

A. Dreams of _______
(Idea written by Jennifer inspired from "The Dreams of Domenica Santolina Doone" from the book Bloomability by Sharon Creech.)
1. Think of the different parts of who you are.
For example, Jennifer is
American, Chinese, teacher, alone, a girl, an athlete, a world traveler, a friend, an ex-gf, lover of food, crier, lover, hater.....
2. Pick one aspect of you for example lover and write a short piece titled the Dreams of a Lover.

B. 6-Word Feelings
1. List different emotions
2. Pick one emotion
3. Write 6 word sentence about that emotion answering the questions
What colors describe it?
What type of room, place, setting?
How does the body feel?
What do you taste?

C. Five-line Poem
Line 1: involves an emotion
Line 2: involves the emotion as a color
Line 3: ________ happens when ______
Line 4: ______ sounds like _____
Line 5: Repeats original emotion

D. Free-writing
http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/
Pick one and write for 10 minutes
At first, I wasn't worried....
I wish I were there now.
Did you see that?
The doctor said, "You have one month to live."

E. 5-10 word stories

Each person begins with 5-word prompt then adds exactly 5 words of their own.
Once upon a time there....
The mystery began when the....
In a kingdom far away....
Once, long ago, a tiny....

F. Write about a photograph

G. Dialogues
(Idea presented by Cheryl, teacher at Number 2 middle school)
Complete the dialogues
1. At a party with a boyfriend
A. Hey beautiful want to dance?
B.
2. At a party with girlfriends, a nerdy boy asks
A. Hey, umm.... do you want to dance?
B.
3. An old man in a shop ready to close the shop but there is a young mother still in the shop. Shopkeeper is angry and ready to leave the shop.
Write a dialogue between the two people.
4. The shopkeeper is angry and ready to close but there is a big man still shopping.
Write a dialogue between the two people.
5. Pick one of the following and write a very short story about the situation including a dialogue.
a. Boyfriend and girlfriend breakup
b. 2 old friends in a supermarket
c. 2 people have an accident in the street

H. Pass the story to the next student

Each student picks one writing prompt. Writes 1-2 sentences and then passes the story to the next student.
She couldn't believe they were open so...
It was cold sitting there, but...
I didn't want to stop there, but it seemed...
Plotting her evil plan, the little girl....
He couldn't believe she said it, and yet...
She didn't care if the whole school knew so...
She peered through the opening and...
It was maybe the biggest one she'd ever seen and she...

1 comment:

Kim @ WriteShop.com said...

Thank you for the link, Jen. Your writing class sounds like fun.