Description | Exposition | Narration | Persuasion | All
Want to inspire your teens to write? Could you use some engaging writing prompts that won’t put your teens to sleep? You’ve come to the right place!
You’ll find prompts for opinions, descriptions, story writing, current events, prompts that are really tutorials in disguise, and much more. Complete instructions are included with each prompt.
Looking for tutorials on essay writing, proofreading, and so on? Interested in writing prompt bundles that span many grades? Click here.
Find prompts for your middle school students here.
Thanks for visiting the High School Prompts page. If you have a writing prompt you would like to submit, please contact Sharon Watson.
“You can’t wait for inspiration.
You have to go after it with a club.”
— JACK LONDON
Intro to Writing, Part 6: Easily Develop Thesis Statements
Thesis Statements
A guy walks in to your living room and blurts out, “Pizza.”
You look at him and wonder what he means. Well, you know the subject matter—pizza—but you don’t know where he’s going with this. He could take it in any of these directions:
“I want pizza.”
“Pizza is bad for you and here’s why.”
“Eat more pizza; it contains all the food groups.”
“I know how to get bigger tips working as a pizza delivery person.”
“This is how to build the perfect pizza.”
“The pizza you buy here is very different from the pizza you can get in Italy.”
“With six hundred dollars borrowed from their mother, two brothers began one humble Pizza Hut, now an international chain.”
Or, of course, he could mean, “Here’s the pizza you ordered. Now give me a tip so I can get out of here.”
When you write an essay, writing about the subject matter is only the beginning. Readers need to know what direction you are taking your subject. That way, they will keep reading and will understand what you are doing. For instance, if your introduction looks like you are going to write about the founder of Amazon but you end up writing about all the cool stuff you can find there, your readers will be confused.
What’s your main idea? What’s the one thought you want to convey to your readers? Everything you write about your subject matter is going to be gathered around one statement, one main idea, so that people reading your essay know what direction you are taking your subject.
This main idea is called a thesis statement. (more…)
Intro to Writing, Part 5: Point Orders
Problems with Point Orders?
One of my students handed in an interesting essay on volcanic activity. She included lots of facts, dates, and anecdotes, but there was one big problem.
There was no rhyme or reason for the order in which she put her facts. Each major or historic volcanic eruption was in its own paragraph, but the paragraphs were in no particular order. It felt jumbled and incoherent.
How could she have arranged her paragraphs to have the most impact on her reader? Check below for two possible answers to this conundrum. (more…)
Intro to Writing, Part 4: Paragraphs
Can a chart rescue poorly written paragraphs?
Do your students have trouble coming up with ideas to put in their paragraphs? Are their paragraphs only one or two sentences long?
Are they a jumbled mess of ideas?
A paragraph is all about one idea. In it, your student will teach something about that idea, explain it, or prove why it is the right one.
In Intro to Writing, Part 4, you’ll find a practical chart to help your student formulate ideas and put them into a credible paragraph. (more…)
Intro to Writing, Part 3: Outlines
Outlines.
Did I lose you already?
The idea of outlines and actually creating them can be confusing and frustrating to our students.
But what if we could make organizing material a little easier for them?
Intro to Writing, Part 3 takes some of the pain out of learning about outline. It uses material your students are already very familiar with: restaurant categories and the way grocery stores are organized. (more…)
Photo-Inspired Prompts
“A writer is simply a photographer of thoughts.” -Brandon A. Trean
Oftentimes our writing spills forth from an experience we’ve had or memory we’ve made. We keep a picture or image in our mind’s eye about that event, and it becomes the inspiration that prompts our writing. Have you experienced that?
Using someone else’s image or photo as a writing prompt can develop empathy and enable you to imagine the world from their perspective. That’s a valuable skill for a writer.
Grab these five fun photos here!
Go to the Ant—A Picnic Prompt
SHARON’S BLOG
Summer is almost here, and that means picnics! When you think of picnics, what comes to mind? It might be fried chicken, sweet tea, or potato salad. You might think of your mom, siblings, or other family members at a park. Maybe you think of Frisbees, Nerf balls, or a blanket to sit on.
But you and your family aren’t the only ones at the picnic! You might see (more…)
