Comment on article by contacting author Corinne Rath.

Writing Prompts

by Corinne Rath

As educators we need to know what motivates our students to write. Toward the end of the DWP experience, I created a discussion activity called "Guess the Writing Prompt". I designed this for educators' writing workshops, inservice meetings, or informal teacher gatherings. This is what I did: I brought in various pieces of written work, and had the teachers read them. Then I asked "What do you think originally prompted the author to write this piece?" We realize there is definitely more than one answer to this question! Teachers tried to guess what inspired or encouraged the writer. While discussing prompts and inspirations, we were getting new teaching ideas.

Even though the reader may have thought of a prompt that was different from the original, we discussed how the one guessed could also have been an inspiration. For example, our guest author, Anthony Rath, age 8, read his story "The Jolly Snowman". I asked the listeners what they thought motivated him to write it. One teacher thought his mother encouraged him to write on a cold winter's day; perhaps he had been looking out the window. Another idea, he may have gone outside, made a snowman, and then wrote his story. His writing prompt was actually a Christmas card picture (*See "Visual Writing Prompts" below). Authors bring in all kinds of creativity and background knowledge to their work. They follow leads as they write and revise. Thus these teacher-generated ideas could have been appropriate prompts as well.

This is just one way educators can get ideas to motivate writers. Discussion of ways to encourage learners to write, is beneficial for teachers and students alike. Hopefully this activity will give teachers new "writing prompts" to utilize in teaching writing.

We don't need to tell students to write; we need to inspire them to write. I'd be happy to receive suggestions on how to develop this activity even more.

Visual Writing Prompts:

• Have each student look at a Christmas card picture. Students may describe what they see, "put themselves in the picture", write from different perspectives, make up a story, dialogue, poem, etc.
• Read the book, From Pictures to Words: A Book About Making a Book, by Janet Stevens. Students may use illustrations in this book, paintings, photos, or their own pictures to inspire their writing.
• Use the inspirational book, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg to go from mysterious pictures to words.

Comment on article by contacting author Corinne Rath.

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