Are you encountering resistance when you ask your students to write?
Is there crying involved?
It is intimidating for students to stare down a blank piece of paper or an empty computer screen. Middle and high school students have revealed to me why they are negative about writing. Here’s what they have to say:
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I have a secret to tell you.
I’m not really sure I should. After all, it feels a little like a chef revealing the secret ingredient to a closely guarded family recipe, but I’m going to share it with you anyway.
As you may know, I create many writing prompts and wrote the daily writing prompts for SchoolhouseTeachers.com for over two years. That’s a lot of writing and a lot of prompts.
Where do I get my ideas? Here’s my secret:
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Do you want to influence your readers? Do you want to grab their hearts?
Use the power of story.
There are two kinds of stories: the true ones and the fictional ones. People have been using both kinds forever, and so can you.
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I am sickened and saddened by the news that Planned Parenthood is dealing in baby parts. I imagine you are troubled as well.
Whether they are truly selling them or, as they say, making them available, there is no defense for these actions.
This exposé is an organic teaching moment for us and our teens. How can we help our teens understand what is godly and debunk the “humanitarian” argument?
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One of the first rules story writers learn is this: Show, don’t tell.
What does that mean? Check out the following examples to see what I mean.
When you write a story, try not to tell your readers what your character is feeling, like this:
Jeremy was angry.
Instead, show your character in action, like this:
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In a recent tutorial, you practiced plunging your character into hot water with two powerful methods many writers use. You can find that prompt here.
This week you’ll examine three more methods of getting your main character deep into a story. As Stanley Elkin reveals, “I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope.”
You have an idea for a story but don’t know how to get it going. Or you would like to write a story but are out of ideas.
When you write a story, you have to throw a lot of things at your main character, things he or she would rather not have to deal with. In this prompt, you’ll learn two proven methods to get ideas and plunge your character into hot water. In this prompt, you’ll explore three more.
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It’s summer. A sweet breeze of relief flows through the family tree and tickles the leaves. You hear a child giggle.
But you’ve worked hard on this year’s writing classes, and you want to make sure that your children’s writing skills don’t completely deteriorate during summer vacation. What can you do?
Summer is fun, and your children’s summertime writing activities can be fun for them and for you as well. Otherwise, it’s not really summer!
The most important feature of writing in summer is
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Here’s a free grammar lesson for your teens from The Power in Your Hands: Writing Nonfiction in High School, 2nd Edition. It’s on gender-neutral language in writing—and it has the answers at the end! Keep reading to see this valuable lesson. Enjoy!
Incidentally, the subject of gender-neutral language is not related to the transgender movement or any biological issues.
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April is National Poetry Month. What a wonderful time to try your hand at writing a poem!
Haiku (high KOO) is a beautiful poem form that comes from Japan. It is usually about nature and can be spoken in one breath.
Syllables are important in a haiku. Words can be broken into parts based on their vowel sounds. Those parts are syllables. Tree has one syllable. Forest has two. And timberland has three. When you speak these words out loud, you can hear their syllables.
Haiku poems have another feature: They do not rhyme.
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