Spice Up Your Writing Block

Becky SchnekserBlog, Connect Better, Differentiate Better, Engage Better, Innovate Better, Lesson Plan Better

TL;DR:

  • Here is an inspirational, engaging writing activity to spice up your literacy program.

    Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

  • Provide images for students to write creative captions.
  • Provide an image for students to craft a news story or article for the newspaper.
  • Compose captions for short stories with photos for students to match.
  • Provide a photo and ask your learners to compose a conversation that might be happening in or about the photo.

Are you looking for some inspiration in your writing block?

Do you need an engaging writing activity that breaks the norm?

Are you going to be out and need an effective, fun, and worthwhile writing activity that a substitute can deploy?

Do you have a few minutes to fill in your day?

I got you.

Are you looking for some inspiration in your writing block? Do you need an engaging writing activity that breaks the norm? Need an effective, fun, and worthwhile writing activity? I got you. Click To Tweet

I have created a few variations of the same base activity, sure to meet your needs no matter what they are or the age of learner you have in your learning space!

What you need:

  1. Learners
  2. Writing utensils and media
  3. Photographs like these from Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

Here are a few ideas to incorporate along with some creative writing in your learning space.

Spice Up Your Writing Block Idea 1: Creative Captions

Provide each learner with a photo. Inspire learners to create a caption or explanation for the photo — you can set the boundaries and expectations. These can be silly, serious, or perhaps open-ended. Consider creating an example or two for a photo to provide a little support for learners who are more hesitant to begin.

This might be a great opportunity to weave in science concepts such as classification or adaptations! You could even allow for a combination of silly and serious creations.

Throw in a gallery walk for learners to view the work of others to incorporate a little movement and collaboration!

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Spice Up Your Writing Block Idea 2: Breaking News Article or Television Headline

Task your learners with crafting a news story script or article for the newspaper (or online blog!) about the action in the photo. This could start as a caption and morph itself into a longer piece of writing. You could make this a team effort by composing one sentence at a time around the room. Maybe you already have a script written with strategic errors within the text for learners to find, correct, and improve! Maybe even throw in some technology integration where they create graphics to accompany the photo and script, a slideshow for the news anchors to use as a background or even deliver the news story themselves while you video record it for their families!

Spice Up Your Writing Block Idea 3: Match the Caption

Utilize a little humor and creative thinking by composing captions to short stories ahead of time for photos. Allow learners to match up the captions to the photos they think are connected. This is a great opportunity to incorporate debate and conversation as learners must defend their answers. Better yet, can they articulate which captions do not make sense?

Spice Up Your Writing Block Idea 4: Narration and Dialogue

Provide a photo and ask your learners to compose a conversation that might be happening in or about the photo. This provides an opportunity to practice using quotation marks for dialogue in a fun and engaging way! You could even ask them whether it makes more sense to create dialogue that is happening in the photo versus dialogue that might be happening about the photo. For example, if there are multiple animals in the photo, perhaps a dialogue with the animals in the photo makes more sense. If there is only one animal in the photo, it could be what the animal is thinking or what people viewing the photo are saying to one another.

Do you have an idea to share? Post on social media! I’d love to see what you come up with!

About Becky Schnekser

Becky is an educator explorer with experience in PK-5, public and private, all subject areas. Currently, she prides herself on teaching field and expedition-style science to K-5 explorers in Virginia. Her passion resides in authentic experiences to educate learners of all ages and all subject areas. When not with young scientists in the field, she spends time around the world completing fieldwork with scientists in places like the Peruvian Amazon, Galapagos, and Iceland.