I found a link to a site I was not familiar with, thanks to Free Technology for Teachers. It’s called Toasted Cheese. The prompts are presented on a calendar, with one per day. You can also access their archives of prompts by year. 2011′s can be found here. They look pretty interesting. Why not check them out?
Category Archives: Writing Prompts
Writing Prompts
Stuck for something to write about? Consider checking out the list of prompts at Plinky.com. They are designed to integrate with Facebook, Twitter, and blogging platforms, but they would also work with plain old pen and paper! Some of them are silly:
In the seemingly endless war between vampires and werewolves, whose side are you on?
If there were an Olympics for lazy people, where would it be held?
Others are a little more serious:
Are you a leader or a follower?
Share three things you do every day without fail.
Anyway, check them out if you are stuck for a writing prompt. They could be fun!
Writing Prompt – January 17
Well, I ended up not writing about last week’s prompt. What about you? Never fear, it is a new week and there is a new prompt. Again, it is an opening line. This time it is from Jane Smiley:
The end of September is a great time to have a birthday if you want to be a writer.
- Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
Please feel free to post anything you write here as a comment. We’d love to read it!
Writing Prompt – January 10
Another first line as a prompt. This one comes from Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg.
Life is not orderly.
Again, write to the prompt or not. Post your writing here as a comment if you feel so inclined.
Writing Prompt – January 3
Time to get the creative juices flowing again after the holidays. Here is your writing prompt:
“Then there was the bad weather.”
- Ernest Hemingway, opening line of A Moveable Feast
Do with it what you will. If you would like to post your piece here as a comment, it would be great. If not, that’s OK, too!
What do you think?
In Write to Learn (p12), Donald Murray talks about the rules for writing he was taught in school. He says,”They were absolute, unquestioned, always followed by the writers we studied.” He says they were “guaranteed to produce ineffective and graceless writing,” and he advocates “unlearning” those rules.
What rules have you been taught about writing? What kind of writing do they produce? Maybe more importantly, what rules for writing do you teach?
Please write about this topic in the coming week. You may post your thoughts about it here as a comment if you like.
Something new
I would like to start posting thoughts and ideas here for us to react to. Think of it as writing prompt. You may respond here as a comment or you may write about it in your paper journal. It doesn’t matter where you write. All that matters is that you write. I wil post these on Sundays generally. Feel free to post whenever you have time.
This week’s prompt…
Donald Murray, in his book Write to Learn (page 7 in the 8th edition) says:
All writers are self-taught. Your instructor can help, your classmates can help, this book can help, but you still have to learn how to write in your own way…
What do you think? Do we teach our students to write? Did we learn to write because someone taught us?
Write. Share your ideas.
