Writing Prompts Archives - Page 9 of 27 - Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

Doctors and Assisted Suicide

You are a doctor, and you have been told that you must assist a patient with their suicide. If you don’t you will be breaking the law.

Doctors in some American states, in Quebec, and in some Scandinavian countries are facing this increasingly ethical dilemma: Help patients kill themselves or be punished.

In fact, doctors in Quebec, through Bill 52, are given a kit with three medicines designed to calm their patients’ anxiety and then stop their breathing, according to the Church Around the World.

Brittany Maynard, a vivacious 29-year-old woman dying of cancer of the brain, committed suicide in 2014 with the help of her physician. You can read her story here.

J. J. Hanson, a Marine Corp veteran, learned that he, too, is suffering from the same inoperable brain cancer that Brittany Maynard dealt with. You can read his story here.

Edgar Allan Poe and “The Bells”

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809. Though that is over 200 years ago, we still read his work today.

He’s famous for his short stories and for poems like “The Raven.” (You know, that “Nevermore” poem.)

In an essay, Poe explained how he was very careful to choose just the right words for how they sound and for the effect he was trying to achieve. You’ll see that he was very successful in his poem “The Bells,” which is rich with writer’s devices.

Violence and Martin Luther King Jr.

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for racial equality in the 1950s and early 1960s before he was assassinated, but he did not advocate violence as a means of reaching this goal.

Read the following excerpt taken from Stride Toward Freedom, written by him in 1958:

Adjectives and Your Cereal Box

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Advertising is everywhere. TV commercials bombard you 18 minutes out of every hour, but they are not the only places companies try to sell their products. Think of billboards, huge pictures of food products stuck to restaurant windows, and even your lowly cereal box.

Yes, even after you’ve bought the cereal, you still get advertisements about it. Take a look at a cereal box and notice all the adjectives there to describe the cereal and tell you how great it is. Here’s a sentence from my Cinnamon Life® cereal:

The Call of the Wild and Description

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

From Sunny to Frigid

Buck is a dog who grew up in sunny San Diego, California, but suddenly finds himself thrust into the frigid world of the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon Territory, Canada, in the late 1890s. You can read about him in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.

Here’s Buck and his first encounter with . . . well, I’ll let you figure it out:

Samson and Second Chances

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

When I think of a new year and new beginnings, I think of Samson, the Bible’s strongman.

You know, Samson with the long hair. Samson who wanted to marry a woman from an enemy country, a woman his parents did not approve of. Samson who tore a lion apart with his bare hands and then pestered people about it. Samson who killed thirty men at his wedding. Samson who hung around with Delilah.

That Samson.

From Miracle to Self-centered

Samson’s life was miraculous from the beginning. His mother could not have children, but an angel of the Lord announced to her that she would have a child and that he would help free the Israelites from the iron fist of the Philistines.

For most of his life, however, he pretty much did whatever he wanted to do.

But here’s the amazing part, the part about new beginnings:

New year, New Chance

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
-Oprah Winfrey

You remember Samson of Bible fame? You can read about him in Judges 13-16. God kept giving him chances to get it right, and Samson pretty much blew it every time by focusing on himself instead of on what God wanted.

But you don’t have to be Samson to feel the regret of missed chances or the frustration of personal failure. To be human is to know the gut-punch of remorse.

Maybe you feel as if you failed in something last year. Maybe you wish you could do something all over again, only this time you’d win. You’d do the right thing. You’d have the courage. You’d succeed.

Poignant Christmas Memories

SHARON’S BLOG

Do you have Christmas season memories you hold dear? Here are a few of mine:

The year my mother saved her hard-earned cake-decorating money to buy a sewing machine for me when I was a college freshman. Little did I know that I would use that machine to sew little outfits for my firstborn son and to teach my daughter how to sew on it. In fact, she has it now, and she is teaching her daughters how to sew.

The year we skipped Christmas.

A Christmas Carol Born from Pain

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Henry was a poet and a literature professor. He had a wife. He had children. He had a solid reputation, and his poetry was popular.

And then his world caved in.

One spring, his country became embroiled in a civil war. Families were split apart. Bands of thieves roamed the country, ostensibly to fight but really to steal from civilians and kill them. Emotions ran high; it was painful for everyone.

There’s a Song for That!

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Think back to that first Christmas. Sometime after Mary was visited by an angel, she traveled to her cousin Elizabeth’s house. Elizabeth, an old woman, was finally expecting her first child, and when she heard Mary’s greeting, she reported that her unborn baby “leaped in her womb” (Luke 21: 41 NIV).

Elizabeth called out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!”

At this, Mary broke out into song! Her song is recorded in Luke 1: 46-55 and is sometimes called the Magnificat, which means “my soul magnifies.”

From Sunny to Frigid

From Miracle to Self-centered

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” -Oprah Winfrey

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“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
-Oprah Winfrey