Hello, class! I hope you’ve been having a great day! The reason this post is coming out
today, Sunday, instead of Friday is because I made a goof. In scheduling the post I accidentally scheduled it like I schedule my reviews on Druidan Media. I realized this too late, and I wasn’t going to reschedule this on Saturday, so here we are on Sunday.
This week, the free teaching material is the first of the “Writing Prompts” that I described in my Patreon as a stretch goal. My goal is still that, at $500 a month, I will put out 4 regular free materials and four writing prompts. However, I wanted to show you what those writing prompts would look like (barring any future redesigns), so I decided I would make a post to that purpose.
My second reason for putting out a Writing Prompt is less happy, however. Since this isn’t a full-time job, or even a part-time job yet, I cannot give it as much time as I would like. I’m keeping myself busy with custodial work, but I need to actively search for a new job that will support me until the day this experiment becomes worth the time I invest in it.
I have fairly high standards for the materials I create here. I want them to be both effective and attractive. That takes time – more than I expected. To keep the quality of my materials up, I need to give myself more time to spread out my work on each material. While a lot of consideration goes into creating a good writing prompt, it’s nothing like that necessary for the ideation the other materials and their art assets.
Because of that, every other week is going to be a writing prompt. This will allow me to keep my promise of four free materials a month, and give me enough time to make the non-writing-prompt materials as good as I want them to be. I hope you guys understand! Of course, if you like what I do and want me to focus entirely on “Mr. Cheever’s Class,” then please support me on my Patreon!
As for what’s coming up next week, don’t worry, the second half of the “Show, Don’t Tell” presentation is still coming! That will come out on Friday, so stay tuned.
Anyway, I believe that writing prompts are a valuable tool in their own right, so, let’s get started!
What it is/What it’s for\How to use it:
Of course writers will know that writing prompts are good for practice, but to be frank, most teachers view them as time fillers – valuable mostly to slip into a schedule when you don’t have anything else prepared. This is an incorrect approach to take with writing prompts. They may be time consuming, but I believe they are an essential part of the writing curriculum for many reasons.
Of course the most obvious purpose for a writing prompt is practice. As much as I love a good presentation or lesson, nothing – and I do mean nothing – is as important in developing writing skills as practice. Writing Prompts, no matter the time window given, give students an opportunity for that practice with just enough structure to focus their efforts, and enough creative freedom for students to feel personal investment in the product of their work.
Short writing prompts – in the five to ten minute range – are great for starting writing class with. They can be on the desk for the students to work on the second they walk in the classroom, which helps with classroom management, but they also help spark creativity, leaving the student revved up and ready to jump into long-form writing projects, or participate in class activities.
Medium writing prompts – in the fifteen to thirty minute range – are best used when paired with other writing steps or activities. For instance, if the students are given a thirty-minute writing prompt, the second half of the period could be used for self-assessment, sharing, or it could see the students trading their writing to practice peer editing or peer conferencing. I like this especially because examining writing is just as important for improvement as the act of writing itself. If you believe in homework, it could also be useful for a light assignment as well.
Long writing prompts would take up a full writing period, and in general I don’t like them very much unless time is planned in a future time period for the students to go over and examine their writing through another context. These sorts of prompts are good for writing assessments before a lesson, as well as post-lesson assessments. I believe there is a danger in using these prompts, however, as it can be tempting to use them to simply fill time by taking up a whole class period so the teacher doesn’t have to plan something more complicated – which is not a great angle to take. I don’t believe they make a good replacement for long term writing projects, and I also believe that extensive homework holds limited returns, so I don’t recommend giving them for homework.
The writing prompts I give have a front and back, but in general I believe they can be used for all three lengths. Take today’s prompt:
“Write a scene below in which you show the character feeling that emotion. Be sure not to use the words ‘sad,’ ‘depressed,’ ‘sorrow,’ ‘unhappy,’ ‘miserable,’ ‘gloomy,’ or any other words like those that tell us how the character feels. Show it through the senses, thoughts, and actions!”
This could involve writing a single paragraph, or it could be expanded to fill both the back and front of the page, with a little creativity and will. If you’re using my prompts for the short form writing, you should probably only print out the front page, but if you use them for medium or long segments, I would recommend printing both the front and back pages.
FREE DOWNLOADS:
PDF:
Google Drive: (To Download the Google Drive Files, you will have to click on File and “Download as…” If you use Google Drive a lot, you can also click on “Make a Copy” and modify the file name as you see fit.)
- Printable – “Show, Don’t Tell,” Prompt 01 (Ink Heavy)
- Printable – “Show, Don’t Tell,” Prompt 01 (Ink Light)
- Online-Editable – “Show, Don’t Tell,” Prompt 01 (Dark)
- Online-Editable – “Show, Don’t Tell,” Prompt 01 (Light)
Free Images: As a special bonus, whenever I make a custom image for one of my materials, I will release the image separately under the same license as everything else. So please, enjoy these free images! Just click on one to download it!
I hope you find these materials useful! If you do, and you want to help me keep making free materials for you and teachers around the world, please support me at My Patreon!
Have a great day, and DFTBA!
Sincerely,
– Mr. Edward L. Cheever II
P.S. – DFTBA = “Don’t Forget to be Awesome!”
P.P.S. – All materials are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution -Non-Commercial – ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) License.
Mr. Cheever's Class 