Writing

We’ll take two seemingly unrelated pieces of content (say volcanoes and the human body) and then build analogies to connect the two ideas. In the end, students can create a skit, comic, or story relating the two concepts.

Ever ask students to create research questions? Were their ideas a bit… blah? My own students had a very hard time writing questions they didn’t already know the answer to! This video is how I solved that problem: upgrade research questions with depth and complexity.

What if an inanimate object could express thanks for a special person in your life? What would it write?

How does a drink’s packaging affect us emotionally and logically?

Pi can go beyond circles! What if you wrote using the digits of pi as your guide?

Can your students come up with a one-syllable word to sum up their time away from school? And then rewrite The Beatles’ song Help!?

Let’s see how propaganda techniques can make even something great seem bad.

What if Kylo Ren wrote a love letter to Abe Lincoln or the Sahara Desert wrote one to the Moon?

Starting with an old-timey photo, students will write from a particular item’s point of view.

What is bobbing for apples like… for an apple?

Wouldn’t some holidays be better on a certain day of the week? Should Thanksgiving have a set date?

Put a grumpy character next to a joyful one and they make each other stand out even more. Opposites are powerful!

When we try to solve a problem, sometimes we end up creating new problems. Which lead to new solutions. Which lead to new problems.

Let’s write a holiday song about order and chaos!

Dig into the common elements of the fantasy genre.

Let’s write the cleverest Mother’s Day cards you’ve ever seen!

How would real people feel about the legends that have been created about them?

What if your students rewrote Dickens in the style of Hemingway and vice versa?

When I see a quote, I often think, “That’s not quite right!”

Students work with subjects, predicates, and conjunctions to write compound sentences.