What Comes to Mind When You See This Picture?
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS Once in a while, it’s interesting to look at a picture and write whatever comes to your mind—no guidance, no rules. So, here goes . . .
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Proofreading: It’s Not Just for Cheerleaders
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS Proofreading. What a pain. You finish your essay and think you’re through with it, but, no. Now you have to proofread it. It turns out that writing and proofreading are two separate skills. In fact, they use two different parts of your brain and should be done at different times. To take…
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Stained-glass Butterflies and How to Write a How-to
SHARON’S BLOG Students will follow along as I guide them through my experience with making stained-glass butterflies. As they read, they’ll be learning how to write a how-to and then insert transitions into the essay to move their readers easily through the process. Suitable for students in 5th – 12th grade. My stained-glass how-to essay…
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Why Not Drop Out?
Across the country, nearly 1 out of every 4 high school students is dropping out, according to boostup.org.
You can check the statistics on drop-out rates in your state here. You can read reasons why students drop out here.
Why do you think students drop out of high school? Why do you think they don’t graduate? Do you think they should stay in school and graduate? After all, David Karp, founder of Tumblr, dropped out of high school and recently sold his company to Yahoo for $1.1 billion. He seems to be doing okay, so what’s the big deal?
High school graduates are seven times more likely to own their own homes, will earn $260,000 more
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Create a New Park
MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS I recently visited The Headlands, an International Dark Sky Park west of Mackinaw City, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Michigan. A dark sky park is an area set aside for night-sky viewing and is away from man-made lighting so that the night sky is clear. You can see so many more stars…
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If You Could Not Speak for 15 Years, What Would Your First Words Be?
Many reasons exist for someone not speaking. For instance, someone may be afraid to speak and be an elective mute. Some may have been born with physical problems that make it difficult to speak. Others may have lost the ability to speak due to an illness, which is what happened to Don in this video. Watch it and choose a writing prompt.
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The Hamburger Menu
MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS McDonald’s Big Mac. Burger King’s Whopper. Hardee’s Thickburger. Rally’s and Checker’s Big Buford. Is your mouth watering yet? Let’s celebrate hamburgers and cheeseburgers with a menu of writing prompt choices.
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I Believe . . .
HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS I find writing prompts in the most unusual places, and this week’s prompt is no exception. Have you ever eaten at a Fazoli’s restaurant? Their slogan is “Real Italian. Real Fast.” They may have the best breadsticks on the planet. Their cups and breadstick papers are covered with sayings. I found this one…
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3 Ideas to Help Your Writers, and Only 2 of Them Are Crazy
SHARON’S BLOG I understand at the outset of this article that the word “them” in my title is ambiguous. Does it stand for the writers or for the ideas? As you can see, writing is hard. At least, that’s what students tell me. It makes their hands hurt. They don’t know where to begin. They…
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So Long, Pluto!
MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS Can you believe there’s a day named Pluto Demoted Day? It is August 24, when in 2006, Pluto was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet. Recent photos of Pluto by NASA’s spacecraft New Horizons have been fascinating. Here’s one of them, with a lighter shape informally named “the heart”:
