Language Arts Classroom

Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Week One

Week on of creative writing lesson plans: free lesson plan for creative writing. Creative writing lessons can be scaffolded.

Looking for creative writing lesson plans? I am developing creative writing lesson ideas! 

I’ve written and revamped my creative writing lesson plans and learned that the first week is vital in establishing a community of writers, in outlining expectations, and in working with a new class.

What are some good creative writing exercises?

Some good creative writing exercises include writing prompts, free writing, character development exercises, and fun writing games.

The first week, though, we establish trust—and then we begin powerful creative writing exercises to engage young writers and our community.

How can add encouragement in creative writing lesson plans?

I’ve found students are shy about writing creatively, about sharing pieces of themselves. A large part of the first week of class is setting the atmosphere, of showing everyone they are free to create. And! These concepts will apply to most writing lesson plans for secondary students.

Feel free to give me feedback and borrow all that you need! Below, find my detailed my day-by-day progression for creative writing lesson plans  for week one.

Build the community in a creative writing class. A creative writing lesson can build young writers' confidence.

Creative Writing Lesson Day One: Sharing my vision

Comfort matters for young writers. I’m not a huge “ice breaker” type of teacher—I build relationships slowly. Still, to get student writing, we must establish that everyone is safe to explore, to write, to error.

Here are some ideas.

Tone and attitude

For day one with any lesson plan for creative writing, I think it is important to set the tone, to immediately establish what I want from my creative writing students. And that is…

them not to write for me, but for them. I don’t want them writing what they think I want them to write.

Does that make sense? Limitations hurt young writers. My overall tone and attitude toward young writers is that we will work together, create and write together, provide feedback, and invest in ourselves. Older kiddos think that they must provide teachers with the “correct” writing. In such a course, restrictions and boundaries largely go out the window.

Plus, I specifically outline what I believe they can produce in a presentation to set people at ease.

The presentation covers expectations for the class. As the teacher, I am a sort of writing coach with ideas that will not work for everyone. Writers should explore different methods and realize what works for them. First, not everyone will appreciate every type of writing—which is fine. But as a writing community, we must accept that we may not be the target audience for every piece of work.

Therefore, respect is a large component of the class. Be sure to outline what interactions you find acceptable within your classroom community.

Next, as their writing coach, I plan to provide ideas and tools for use. Their job is to decide what tools work for their creative endeavors. My overall message is uplifting and encouraging.

Finally, when we finish, I share the presentation with students so they can consult it throughout the semester. The presentation works nicely for meet-the-teacher night, too!

After covering classroom procedures and rules, I show students a TED Talk. We watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie. My goal is to show students that I don’t have a predetermined idea concerning what they should write. This discussion takes the rest of the class period.

Establishing comfort and excitement precedents my other creative writing activities. Personalize your “vision” activities for your lessons in creative writing. Honestly, doing this pre-work builds relationships with students and creates a positive classroom atmosphere.

Activate prior knowledge when building a creative writing course. When building creative writing lesson plans, build off what students know.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Two: Activating prior knowledge

Students possess prior knowledge concerning creative writing, but they might not consider that. Students should realize that they know what constitutes a great story. They might not realize that yet. An easy lesson plan for creative writing that will pay off later is to activate prior knowledge. Brainstorm creative, memorable, unforgettable stories with students. Share your thoughts too! You will start to build relationships with students who share the same tastes as you (and those that are completely different!).

Activation activity

During this activity, I want to see how students work together, and I want to build a rapport with students. Additionally, activating prior knowledge provides a smooth transition into other creative writing activities.

This creative writing activity is simple:

I ask students to tell me memorable stories—books, play, tv shows, movies—and I write them on the board. I add and veto as appropriate. Normally doing these classroom discussions, we dive deeper into comedies and creative nonfiction. Sometimes as we work, I ask students to research certain stories and definitions. I normally take a picture of our work so that I can build creative writing lessons from students’ interests.

This takes longer than you might think, but I like that aspect. This information can help me shape my future lessons.

Creative writing lesson plans: free download for creative writing activities for your secondary writing classes. Creative writing lessons should provide a variety of writing activities.

With about twenty minutes left in class, I ask students to form small groups. I want them to derive what makes these stories memorable. Since students complete group and partner activities in this class, I also watch and see how they interact.

Students often draw conclusions about what makes a story memorable:

  • Realistic or true-to-life characters.
  • Meaningful themes.
  • Funny or sad events.

All of this information will be used later as students work on their own writing. Many times, my creative writing lessons overlap, especially concerning the feedback from young writers.

Use pictures to enhance creative writing lesson plans. With older students, they can participate in the lesson plan for creative writing.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Three: Brainstorming and a graphic organizer

From building creative writing activities and implementing them, I now realize that students think they will sit and write. Ta-da!  After all, this isn’t academic writing. Coaching creative writing students is part of the process.

Young writers must accept that a first draft is simply that, a first draft. Building a project requires thought and mistakes. (Any writing endeavor does, really.) Students hear ‘creative writing’ and they think… easy. Therefore, a first week lesson plan for creative writing should touch on what creativity is.

Really, creativity is everywhere. We complete a graphic organizer titled, “Where is Creativity?” Students brainstorm familiar areas that they may not realize have such pieces.

The ideas they compile stir all sorts of conversations:

  • Restaurants
  • Movie theaters
  • Amusement parks

By completing this graphic organizer, we discuss how creativity surrounds us, how we can incorporate different pieces in our writing, and how different areas influence our processes.

Build a community of creative writers. An impactful creative writing lesson should empower young writers.

Creative Writing Lesson, Days Four and Five: Creative Nonfiction

Students need practice writing, and they need to understand that they will not use every word they write. Cutting out lines is painful for them! Often, a lesson plan for creative writing involves providing time for meaningful writing.

For two days, we study and discuss creative nonfiction. Students start by reading an overview of creative nonfiction . (If you need mentor texts, that website has some as well.) When I have books available, I show the class examples of creative nonfiction.

We then continue through elements of a narrative . Classes are sometimes surprised that a narrative can be nonfiction.

The narrative writing is our first large project. As we continue, students are responsible for smaller projects as well. This keeps them writing most days.

Overall, my students and I work together during the first week of any creative writing class. I encourage them to write, and I cheer on their progress. My message to classes is that their writing has value, and an audience exists for their creations.

And that is my week one! The quick recap:

Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Monday: Rules, procedures, TED Talk, discussion.

Tuesday: Prior knowledge—brainstorm the modeling of memorable stories. Draw conclusions about storytelling with anchor charts. Build community through common knowledge.

Wednesday: Graphic organizer.

Thursday and Friday: Creative nonfiction. Start narrative writing.

Students do well with this small assignment for the second week, and then we move to longer creative writing assignments . When classesexperience success with their first assignment, you can start constructive editing and revising with them as the class continues.

Lesson plan for creative writing: free creative writing lesson plans for week one of ELA class. Add creative writing activities to your high school language arts classes.

These creative writing activities should be easy implement and personalize for your students.

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Creative writing syllabus and graphic organizer

creative writing creative writing activities

Walking by the Way

the road to inspired learning

Revision Lesson Plan

March 14, 2012 by Ami 12 Comments

After seven other creative writing lessons, it was time to take a deep dive into revision.

creative writing revision lesson

We’ve been discussing revision every week as we review the homework assignments at the beginning of class.

These students were eager to see the good and the bad each week; they wanted to improve, and they listened to the feedback given.

By week three, students participated in the feedback. I would read a homework assignment and ask each person to find one compliment for the writer and one suggestion. 

1. Discuss Revision

I love the word revise . It literally means to re-see, to see again.

I encourage my students to look at their writing again, with new eyes.

We draft drafts so that we can improve our writing. This is the amazing thing about crafting with a pencil. It is like sloshing paint on a canvas, but unlike a painter, a wordsmith has a chance to erase, to cross out, to fill in–to make something new. Our paint is not stuck.

I discuss all of this with my students, and I try to inspire them to not be “one and done” writers. Continually work (and work and work!) to make your writing better.

2. Give Revision Guidelines

Tell the students they they are going to find a peer review partner. Give them simple guidelines: You must give your partner at least five pieces of feedback. You can fix spelling and grammar, but these do not count toward the five pieces of feedback.

Explain what constructive review entails and encourage them to word things in an encouraging but challenging way. Give examples. (I discussed how we had done this all semester.)

The students partnered up for the remainder of the class and reviewed one another’s fairy tales. I was amazed when I noted how they wrote comments and notes all over their peer’s papers.

Note: If you aren’t sure about all of this peer editing stuff, please check out Jimmie’s blog post . It will give you some great guidelines.

3. At the end of the class, students were instructed to go home and revise. See your story again with new eyes.

They were to email their stories to me by Wednesday, so I could have them back to them as quickly as possible for the final edits. 

They were also told to bring these things to the next class:

  • final fractured fairy tale 
  • two additional revised works (anything they had written in the past eight weeks )
  • their favorite poem (written by someone else)
  • a strong voice (to read all of the above aloud)
  • a coffee house snack (we had a sign-up sheet)

Creative Writing Final Week

For our final week, I hosted a Coffee House.

We set up shop–complete with coffee & cream, hot cocoa, muffins, pirouette cookies, biscotti, and other baked deliciousness.

Each student took his or her turn reading the poetry and prose written throughout the course.

We were filled up with beautiful goodness–the wordy kind. And we were sad to part. 

More Creative Writing Lessons

If you missed my other creative writing lessons related to this class, you can start here .

If you are looking for additional creative writing lessons, try these .

creative writing revision lesson

December 19, 2013 at 3:21 pm

Hi Shellah,

My best suggestion is to teach him to type. Horrible handwriting is not the end of the world. 🙂

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December 21, 2013 at 11:01 am

Wow, just wanted to say thanks.  Your writing class looks like so much fun, it's well organized, and seems like something I can bring into my homeschool and actually follow through with it.  Thank you SO MUCH for sharing!

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Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations

Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations

  • Resources & Preparation
  • Instructional Plan
  • Related Resources

This lesson helps students become more comfortable with the revision process, both as writers responding to their peers and as writers engaged in revising their own pieces.  Once students watch authors Kate DiCamillo and Debra Frasier revise their own work through online videos, students develop a checklist to help them see what effective writers do to be able to create a well-developed piece of writing.  Students are then guided through the process of revising their teacher's work. Later, students communicate their ideas for revision of their peers' work through a written conversation so that peers can remember and reflect upon their thoughts.

Featured Resources

Effective Writers... :  This checklist provides new writers with specific suggestions ranging from grammatical accuracy to reaching an intended audience. Effective Writers...Written Conversation Sentence Starters : These sentence starters help students to frame their thoughts in a peer review setting in order to provide constructive feedback to another writer.

From Theory to Practice

Teachers at all grade levels strive to get students to see revision as an integral part of the writing process rather than a hasty, perfunctory step added at the end (if there is time). This lesson focuses on the power of modeling, discussion, and conversation as tools to teach and promote qualitiy revision. Regie Routman warns teachers not to "underestimate the power of talk on writing quality.  Informal conversations among students as they write influences the amount and quality of revisions students are willing to make.  Conversations with others help students express their ideas more fully and make them their own" (184). Because writers often need a concrete record of suggestions that come from such conversations, this lesson offers the alternative of written conversations. "In this kind of discussion," Rober Probst explains, "students write simultaneous notes to each other"¦Compare this kind of active, one-to-one exchange with standard "whole-class" discussions in which two or three kids monopolize the conversations (Me! Me! Me!) while everyone else sleeps with their eyes open.  When everyone is "˜discussing' with a partner in writing, then potentially everyone is engaged and acting upon the subject matter" (10). Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

  • 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
  • 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
  • 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
  • 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
  • 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
  • 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

  • Internet access
  • Computer with projector and speakers
  • Online videos of Debra Frasier and KateDiCamillo describing their writing and revision process
  • Copy of Because of Winn Dixie
  • Oversized lined paper
  • Students' writer's notebooks
  • Piece of writing completed by teacher
  • Effective Writers...
  • Effective Writers...Written Conversation Sentence Starters
  • Effective Writers...Reflecting on Revision

Preparation

  • Ideally, before engaging in this lesson, students need to have watched their teacher model how to revise his or her work, participated in whole class sharing when the teacher assists students in providing meaningful peer feedback, and participated in student-teacher conferences.  These experiences will provide students with the language necessary to present valuable suggestions when responding to another's work.  Students need to be taught how to move away from using phrases such as "I liked it" and develop more specific criticism that will lead the writer toward improvement, such as, "I like that you used the word slither because it helped create a more precise picture in my mind about how the animal moved." If this prior experience is not available, you will need to scaffold more intensely for these skills and habits of mind throughout the lesson.
  • Select a piece of your own writing you are willing to share and revise in front of your students. In this lesson, student will have an opportunity to observe their teacher during his or her writing process, helping them see that writing (including revising) is be challenging, complex, and recursive.
  • Familiarize yourself with Kate DiCamillo's videos .  This Website shows five drafts of the beginning of the novel, Because of Winn Dixie . Click Next to hear comments about each draft.
  • Make copies of Kate DiCamillo's drafts .  You may want to make a copy of each draft for every student, or you may want students to share.
  • Preview Debra Frasier's videos online and decide which videos would be the most helpful for your students.  Because these videos are hosted by YouTube, you may need to contact your Information Technology department for assistance in accessing them at school.

Student Objectives

Students will

  • create a checklist of effective writing habits after examining drafts and viewing online videos of authors discussing revision.
  • respond to a sample of the teacher's writing using the class-created checklist of effective writing habits.
  • apply what they learned during the teacher's modeling to help them evaluate their own and their peers' work.
  • respond to the written work of peers and provide written suggestions for revision, concentrating on an agreed upon focus area.
  • revise and share their own work using both the checklist and peer suggestions.

Session One

  • Ask students to raise their hands if they have ever heard of the story Because of Winn Dixie .
  • Show the students a copy of Because of Winn Dixie and complete a short book talk. Alternately, you may ask students who are familiar with the book to give a short summary to their classmates.
  • Read aloud the first chapter of the book and engage the students in a discussion about what they liked about this chapter. You may wish to record their responses on the board or on chart paper.
  • Explain to students that when authors write, they have to go back and revise their work many times before it is ready to be made into a book.  The aspects of Because of Winn Dixie they like so much may not have been in the book in the first draft, or they may have been so different that they would not recognize them.
  • Explain that the process of writing takes time and is hard work.  Tell the students that you will show them the first five drafts of this story so they can see the revisions Kate DiCamillo had to make to the story before it was ready to be published.
  • Provide the students with copies of the drafts .  Give them time to examine the drafts and then allow the students to listen to Kate DiCamillo explain the process of writing them (click Next to progress through the drafts.
  • Then share with students the Kate DiCamillo's quote about writing . Discuss the quote and ask students if they know how she feels when she says, "Usually, those two pages stink pretty bad."
  • Direct students to take out their writer's notebooks and explain that together you will create a list on the board or projector that outlines all the things writers do to make their work better.  Entitle this list "Effective Writers..."
  • Instruct students to look at Kate DiCamillo's drafts and think about what steps she took to make her work better.  You may begin the list and then ask students for their own suggestions.  See a Sample Effective Writers... Checklist to get a sense of what a finished list will look like.
  • Ask students to look through their own writer's notebooks and locate the changes they have made to their own writing.  Inquire if students have anything to add to the list after searching their own notebooks.
  • Inform students they will continue learning about how revision can improve writing in the next session.

Session Two

  • Ask students to open their writer's notebooks and review the Effective Writers... list created together in the last session.
  • Explain to students that you wil be showing them selected videos of another author, Debra Fraiser, working through the writing process. Based on what they see and hear in the videos, students to revisit their Effective Writers... list and make suggestions for additions.
  • Then direct students' attention to the board or projector where a piece of writing completed by the teacher is visible.  Read your work aloud and then model how to revise your own work using the Effective Writers... list as a guide.  The writing piece does not have to be complete, nor should the revision be exhaustive.
  • Once you have made some changes on your own, ask the students to give you suggestions for revising your work, again referring the list as a guide.
  • Then, instruct the students to take out their writer's notebooks and choose an unfinished piece.  It can be a piece they like, don't like, or would like to improve.  This must be a piece of writing they would not mind sharing with others.
  • Explain they will read each others' work and provide their peers with specific feedback to help improve their work, but instead of doing this orally, they will write their feedback on a separate piece of paper. (Teachers may choose to have students complete their written conversations on sticky notes instead of on a separate sheet of paper in the students' writer's notebook.) Encourage students to write as if they were having a conversation.  Students should compliment work and point out areas that need improvement.
  • Distribute copies of the Effective Writers Sentence Starters , or a similar handout you create based on your own classroom conversations, and engage students in a conversation about how this strategy could help them become more successful writers.
  • Ask the students to focus only on one focus area on the Effective Writers... list, such as writing an interesting beginning or creating a picture in the reader's mind .  Explain that this helps to focus their feedback.  As a class, you may want to choose the focus area together.
  • Place the students into cooperative learning groups of three and arrange their desks so they are sitting together.
  • Instruct students to switch notebooks with each other. Give the students time to read their peers' work and write down suggestions for improvement.  Students who finish early can make additional suggestions outside the focus area. 
  • After this first response, students should switch notebooks with the third member of their group.
  • Instruct students to read their peers' work and the second students' feedback.  Once they do this, they will have time to respond in writing to the second student's comments and then write down their own feedback (students may disagree with the first person's revision ideas).  Again, explain that this is like having a conversation, but in written format.
  • Finally, students should return notebooks to their owners and read each others' comments.  Let students know they will continue in the next session.

Session Three

  • Students should gather into the same cooperative learning groups and talk about their written conversation from the previous session. They should use this time to ask questions about the comments they received and to clarify or explain feedback.
  • Then provide students with time to go back and make changes to their writing.  Explain that they should consider the suggestions their peers provided, but they are not required to make these changes.  These suggestions simply help the student to look at their work in a new way.  Explain that the word revision literally means "to see again."
  • Allow students time to meet with their partners to discuss the changes they made to their writing based on their peers' suggestions.
  • Gather students together in a meeting area.  Form a circle and allow students to share their work with the whole class.  Encourage students to discuss the changes they made to their work and ask for additional feedback.
  • What did you think about our written conversations? 
  • What did you like about this activity? 
  • What did you dislike this activity? 
  • Was it helpful?  In what ways?  Why?
  • Give students time to compose responses to the Effective Writers: Reflecting on Revision questions. Adapt the sample checklist to reflect the qualities and characterstics generated in your classroom.
  • After students have moved through the revision process and have polished the piece by editing their work, they can publish their work using the Flipbook or Stapleless Book interactive tools.
  • This lesson could be used with writing in all content areas, including math.  Students could use written conversation to revise each other's steps taken to solve a multi-stepped problem.
  • Once students complete the lesson, the teacher can copy these written conversations on an overhead and discuss how to improve them.
  • Once students become more comfortable with this process, the teacher may choose to allow the students to begin their own written conversation asking for help in a specific area of their writing (students may use the Sentence Starters for this purpose) instead of limiting students to a specific focus area.
  • Teachers can engage in written conversations with students at any time.  The student may write to the teacher asking for feedback in a specific area, and the student may respond to the teacher explaining how he or she revised the writing based on the teacher's feedback.
  • Families can also be brought into this process.  Teachers can ask families to make written suggestions to their students, and the students can write back to their families discussing how they revised the writing.
  • If possible, invite an author to come in and talk about his or her writing and revision process.  Ask the visiting author to bring in copies of his or her revisions to once again help students see that good writers rewrite often.

Student Assessment / Reflections

  • After students have participated in written conversations and revised their work, students should complete the Effective Writers: Reflecting on Revision questions.
  • As students continue to grow as reflective writers, assess and support their increasing capacity to provide constructive feedback to peers and to incorporate suggestions from classmates into their own writing.
  • Strategy Guides
  • Lesson Plans

This strategy guide explains the writing process and offers practical methods for applying it in your classroom to help students become proficient writers.

Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.

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The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Revising Drafts

Rewriting is the essence of writing well—where the game is won or lost. —William Zinsser

What this handout is about

This handout will motivate you to revise your drafts and give you strategies to revise effectively.

What does it mean to revise?

Revision literally means to “see again,” to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose.

But I thought revision was just fixing the commas and spelling

Nope. That’s called proofreading. It’s an important step before turning your paper in, but if your ideas are predictable, your thesis is weak, and your organization is a mess, then proofreading will just be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. When you finish revising, that’s the time to proofread. For more information on the subject, see our handout on proofreading .

How about if I just reword things: look for better words, avoid repetition, etc.? Is that revision?

Well, that’s a part of revision called editing. It’s another important final step in polishing your work. But if you haven’t thought through your ideas, then rephrasing them won’t make any difference.

Why is revision important?

Writing is a process of discovery, and you don’t always produce your best stuff when you first get started. So revision is a chance for you to look critically at what you have written to see:

  • if it’s really worth saying,
  • if it says what you wanted to say, and
  • if a reader will understand what you’re saying.

The process

What steps should i use when i begin to revise.

Here are several things to do. But don’t try them all at one time. Instead, focus on two or three main areas during each revision session:

  • Wait awhile after you’ve finished a draft before looking at it again. The Roman poet Horace thought one should wait nine years, but that’s a bit much. A day—a few hours even—will work. When you do return to the draft, be honest with yourself, and don’t be lazy. Ask yourself what you really think about the paper.
  • As The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers puts it, “THINK BIG, don’t tinker” (61). At this stage, you should be concerned with the large issues in the paper, not the commas.
  • Check the focus of the paper: Is it appropriate to the assignment? Is the topic too big or too narrow? Do you stay on track through the entire paper?
  • Think honestly about your thesis: Do you still agree with it? Should it be modified in light of something you discovered as you wrote the paper? Does it make a sophisticated, provocative point, or does it just say what anyone could say if given the same topic? Does your thesis generalize instead of taking a specific position? Should it be changed altogether? For more information visit our handout on thesis statements .
  • Think about your purpose in writing: Does your introduction state clearly what you intend to do? Will your aims be clear to your readers?

What are some other steps I should consider in later stages of the revision process?

  • Examine the balance within your paper: Are some parts out of proportion with others? Do you spend too much time on one trivial point and neglect a more important point? Do you give lots of detail early on and then let your points get thinner by the end?
  • Check that you have kept your promises to your readers: Does your paper follow through on what the thesis promises? Do you support all the claims in your thesis? Are the tone and formality of the language appropriate for your audience?
  • Check the organization: Does your paper follow a pattern that makes sense? Do the transitions move your readers smoothly from one point to the next? Do the topic sentences of each paragraph appropriately introduce what that paragraph is about? Would your paper work better if you moved some things around? For more information visit our handout on reorganizing drafts.
  • Check your information: Are all your facts accurate? Are any of your statements misleading? Have you provided enough detail to satisfy readers’ curiosity? Have you cited all your information appropriately?
  • Check your conclusion: Does the last paragraph tie the paper together smoothly and end on a stimulating note, or does the paper just die a slow, redundant, lame, or abrupt death?

Whoa! I thought I could just revise in a few minutes

Sorry. You may want to start working on your next paper early so that you have plenty of time for revising. That way you can give yourself some time to come back to look at what you’ve written with a fresh pair of eyes. It’s amazing how something that sounded brilliant the moment you wrote it can prove to be less-than-brilliant when you give it a chance to incubate.

But I don’t want to rewrite my whole paper!

Revision doesn’t necessarily mean rewriting the whole paper. Sometimes it means revising the thesis to match what you’ve discovered while writing. Sometimes it means coming up with stronger arguments to defend your position, or coming up with more vivid examples to illustrate your points. Sometimes it means shifting the order of your paper to help the reader follow your argument, or to change the emphasis of your points. Sometimes it means adding or deleting material for balance or emphasis. And then, sadly, sometimes revision does mean trashing your first draft and starting from scratch. Better that than having the teacher trash your final paper.

But I work so hard on what I write that I can’t afford to throw any of it away

If you want to be a polished writer, then you will eventually find out that you can’t afford NOT to throw stuff away. As writers, we often produce lots of material that needs to be tossed. The idea or metaphor or paragraph that I think is most wonderful and brilliant is often the very thing that confuses my reader or ruins the tone of my piece or interrupts the flow of my argument.Writers must be willing to sacrifice their favorite bits of writing for the good of the piece as a whole. In order to trim things down, though, you first have to have plenty of material on the page. One trick is not to hinder yourself while you are composing the first draft because the more you produce, the more you will have to work with when cutting time comes.

But sometimes I revise as I go

That’s OK. Since writing is a circular process, you don’t do everything in some specific order. Sometimes you write something and then tinker with it before moving on. But be warned: there are two potential problems with revising as you go. One is that if you revise only as you go along, you never get to think of the big picture. The key is still to give yourself enough time to look at the essay as a whole once you’ve finished. Another danger to revising as you go is that you may short-circuit your creativity. If you spend too much time tinkering with what is on the page, you may lose some of what hasn’t yet made it to the page. Here’s a tip: Don’t proofread as you go. You may waste time correcting the commas in a sentence that may end up being cut anyway.

How do I go about the process of revising? Any tips?

  • Work from a printed copy; it’s easier on the eyes. Also, problems that seem invisible on the screen somehow tend to show up better on paper.
  • Another tip is to read the paper out loud. That’s one way to see how well things flow.
  • Remember all those questions listed above? Don’t try to tackle all of them in one draft. Pick a few “agendas” for each draft so that you won’t go mad trying to see, all at once, if you’ve done everything.
  • Ask lots of questions and don’t flinch from answering them truthfully. For example, ask if there are opposing viewpoints that you haven’t considered yet.

Whenever I revise, I just make things worse. I do my best work without revising

That’s a common misconception that sometimes arises from fear, sometimes from laziness. The truth is, though, that except for those rare moments of inspiration or genius when the perfect ideas expressed in the perfect words in the perfect order flow gracefully and effortlessly from the mind, all experienced writers revise their work. I wrote six drafts of this handout. Hemingway rewrote the last page of A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times. If you’re still not convinced, re-read some of your old papers. How do they sound now? What would you revise if you had a chance?

What can get in the way of good revision strategies?

Don’t fall in love with what you have written. If you do, you will be hesitant to change it even if you know it’s not great. Start out with a working thesis, and don’t act like you’re married to it. Instead, act like you’re dating it, seeing if you’re compatible, finding out what it’s like from day to day. If a better thesis comes along, let go of the old one. Also, don’t think of revision as just rewording. It is a chance to look at the entire paper, not just isolated words and sentences.

What happens if I find that I no longer agree with my own point?

If you take revision seriously, sometimes the process will lead you to questions you cannot answer, objections or exceptions to your thesis, cases that don’t fit, loose ends or contradictions that just won’t go away. If this happens (and it will if you think long enough), then you have several choices. You could choose to ignore the loose ends and hope your reader doesn’t notice them, but that’s risky. You could change your thesis completely to fit your new understanding of the issue, or you could adjust your thesis slightly to accommodate the new ideas. Or you could simply acknowledge the contradictions and show why your main point still holds up in spite of them. Most readers know there are no easy answers, so they may be annoyed if you give them a thesis and try to claim that it is always true with no exceptions no matter what.

How do I get really good at revising?

The same way you get really good at golf, piano, or a video game—do it often. Take revision seriously, be disciplined, and set high standards for yourself. Here are three more tips:

  • The more you produce, the more you can cut.
  • The more you can imagine yourself as a reader looking at this for the first time, the easier it will be to spot potential problems.
  • The more you demand of yourself in terms of clarity and elegance, the more clear and elegant your writing will be.

How do I revise at the sentence level?

Read your paper out loud, sentence by sentence, and follow Peter Elbow’s advice: “Look for places where you stumble or get lost in the middle of a sentence. These are obvious awkwardness’s that need fixing. Look for places where you get distracted or even bored—where you cannot concentrate. These are places where you probably lost focus or concentration in your writing. Cut through the extra words or vagueness or digression; get back to the energy. Listen even for the tiniest jerk or stumble in your reading, the tiniest lessening of your energy or focus or concentration as you say the words . . . A sentence should be alive” (Writing with Power 135).

Practical advice for ensuring that your sentences are alive:

  • Use forceful verbs—replace long verb phrases with a more specific verb. For example, replace “She argues for the importance of the idea” with “She defends the idea.”
  • Look for places where you’ve used the same word or phrase twice or more in consecutive sentences and look for alternative ways to say the same thing OR for ways to combine the two sentences.
  • Cut as many prepositional phrases as you can without losing your meaning. For instance, the following sentence, “There are several examples of the issue of integrity in Huck Finn,” would be much better this way, “Huck Finn repeatedly addresses the issue of integrity.”
  • Check your sentence variety. If more than two sentences in a row start the same way (with a subject followed by a verb, for example), then try using a different sentence pattern.
  • Aim for precision in word choice. Don’t settle for the best word you can think of at the moment—use a thesaurus (along with a dictionary) to search for the word that says exactly what you want to say.
  • Look for sentences that start with “It is” or “There are” and see if you can revise them to be more active and engaging.
  • For more information, please visit our handouts on word choice and style .

How can technology help?

Need some help revising? Take advantage of the revision and versioning features available in modern word processors.

Track your changes. Most word processors and writing tools include a feature that allows you to keep your changes visible until you’re ready to accept them. Using “Track Changes” mode in Word or “Suggesting” mode in Google Docs, for example, allows you to make changes without committing to them.

Compare drafts. Tools that allow you to compare multiple drafts give you the chance to visually track changes over time. Try “File History” or “Compare Documents” modes in Google Doc, Word, and Scrivener to retrieve old drafts, identify changes you’ve made over time, or help you keep a bigger picture in mind as you revise.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Elbow, Peter. 1998. Writing With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process . New York: Oxford University Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 2006. Revising Prose , 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

Zinsser, William. 2001. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , 6th ed. New York: Quill.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Creative Writing

15 Classified Ads We Hope Had Happy Endings Writing prompt: choose one of these historical ads and construct a narrative that supports it. Include characters, location, and other necessary details. (Teachers may wish to check the ads for appropriateness.)

20 Mystical Bridges That Will Take You To Another World Creative writing prompt: "I walked across the bridge and ..." The photographs of real bridges on this page are astonishingly beautiful. However, the page also carries ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. Consider copying the photographs into a new file for classroom use.

27 Magical Paths Begging To Be Walked Photographs of beautiful paths all over the world, showing a variety of seasons and geography, just waiting to inspire a poem or serve as the setting for a short story. Note: this page carries ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. Consider copying the photographs into a new file for classroom use.

The 100-Word Challenge In this activity students respond to a prompt using not more than 100 words. Writing is posted on a class blog, where responses are invited. The activity encourages regular writing for an authentic audience. It's designed for students 16 and under.

Adding Emotions to your Story A good lesson on adding detail, "exploding" an incident, and "show, don't tell." It includes handouts and is designed for grades 3-5.

After the First Draft: 30 Fast, Easy Writing Tips for the Second Draft This 37-page document is designed for writers of novels, but many of the tips apply equally to writers of short stories. Clear, simple, and easy to read, appropriate for 5th or 6th grade (in places) and up. Adobe Reader required for access.

All Together Now: Collaborations in Poetry Writing Students write a line of poetry in response to something the teacher reads. Their lines, together, form a poem. This unit is designed for grades K-2.

Bernadette Mayer's List of Journal Ideas A list of journal topics that will work on multiple grade levels. Scroll down for a list of "Writing Experiments" that will work well in a creative writing unit.

The Book of Butterflies by Michael Leunig (Scroll down on the page.) This short (1:06) video explores the question "What happens when a book comes to life?" It will work well on almost any grade level.

By the Old Mill Stream A creative writing prompt, differentiated for elementary and middle and high school students. Students begin writing a narrative. In the second part of the prompt, they write a description.

Calling on the Muse: Exercises to Unlock the Poet Within From Education World.

Can You Haiku? from EdSitement Complete lesson plans for writing haiku, links to additional material.

Character Name Generator Choose ethnicity, decade of birth, and gender, and this site will generate an appropriate name and a possible character description.

Characterization in Literature and Theater Students explore various methods authors use to create effective characters. Students will consider what makes a character believable and create their own characterizations. They will also write a short script using the characters they created and act out the script.

The Clues to a Great Story One-page handout with 5 essential elements for good storytelling. Uses "The Ugly Duckling" and more contemporary stories for examples.

The Color of Love In this lesson students will be invited to reflect on a variety of colors and the pleasurable things that those colors invoke. They then will write a poem about someone they love following Barbara Joosse's style in I Love You the Purplest .

Creating Characters Students examine character as a significant element of fiction. They learn several methods of characterization, identify and critique these methods in well-known works of fiction, and use the methods in works of their own. Students also identify, examine, evaluate, and use the elements dialogue and point of view as methods of characterization.

Creative State of Mind: Focusing on the Writing Process In this lesson, students examine the lyrics of rap artist Jay-Z for literary elements including rhyme, metaphor, puns and allusions, then consider what he says about his own writing process. Finally, they analyze additional lyrics and apply lessons from Jay-Z's process to their own reading and writing.

The Cutting Edge: Exploring How Editing Affects an Author's Work Students examine the writing of short-story author Raymond Carver as well as their own writing to explore how editing can affect the text, content and context of an author's work.

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  • Writing Activities

105 Creative Writing Exercises To Get You Writing Again

You know that feeling when you just don’t feel like writing? Sometimes you can’t even get a word down on paper. It’s the most frustrating thing ever to a writer, especially when you’re working towards a deadline. The good news is that we have a list of 105 creative writing exercises to help you get motivated and start writing again!

What are creative writing exercises?

Creative writing exercises are short writing activities (normally around 10 minutes) designed to get you writing. The goal of these exercises is to give you the motivation to put words onto a blank paper. These words don’t need to be logical or meaningful, neither do they need to be grammatically correct or spelt correctly. The whole idea is to just get you writing something, anything. The end result of these quick creative writing exercises is normally a series of notes, bullet points or ramblings that you can, later on, use as inspiration for a bigger piece of writing such as a story or a poem. 

Good creative writing exercises are short, quick and easy to complete. You shouldn’t need to think too much about your style of writing or how imaginative your notes are. Just write anything that comes to mind, and you’ll be on the road to improving your creative writing skills and beating writer’s block . 

Use the generator below to get a random creative writing exercise idea:

List of 105+ Creative Writing Exercises

Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again:

  • Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment.
  • Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour. For example, Orange, the colour of my favourite top. 
  • Open a book or dictionary on a random page. Pick a random word. You can close your eyes and slowly move your finger across the page. Now, write a paragraph with this random word in it. You can even use an online dictionary to get random words:

dictionary-random-word-imagine-forest

  • Create your own alphabet picture book or list. It can be A to Z of animals, food, monsters or anything else you like!
  • Using only the sense of smell, describe where you are right now.
  • Take a snack break. While eating your snack write down the exact taste of that food. The goal of this creative writing exercise is to make your readers savour this food as well.
  • Pick a random object in your room and write a short paragraph from its point of view. For example, how does your pencil feel? What if your lamp had feelings?
  • Describe your dream house. Where would you live one day? Is it huge or tiny? 
  • Pick two different TV shows, movies or books that you like. Now swap the main character. What if Supergirl was in Twilight? What if SpongeBob SquarePants was in The Flash? Write a short scene using this character swap as inspiration.
  • What’s your favourite video game? Write at least 10 tips for playing this game.
  • Pick your favourite hobby or sport. Now pretend an alien has just landed on Earth and you need to teach it this hobby or sport. Write at least ten tips on how you would teach this alien.
  • Use a random image generator and write a paragraph about the first picture you see.

random image generator

  • Write a letter to your favourite celebrity or character. What inspires you most about them? Can you think of a memorable moment where this person’s life affected yours? We have this helpful guide on writing a letter to your best friend for extra inspiration.
  • Write down at least 10 benefits of writing. This can help motivate you and beat writer’s block.
  • Complete this sentence in 10 different ways: Patrick waited for the school bus and…
  • Pick up a random book from your bookshelf and go to page 9. Find the ninth sentence on that page. Use this sentence as a story starter.
  • Create a character profile based on all the traits that you hate. It might help to list down all the traits first and then work on describing the character.
  • What is the scariest or most dangerous situation you have ever been in? Why was this situation scary? How did you cope at that moment?
  • Pretend that you’re a chat show host and you’re interviewing your favourite celebrity. Write down the script for this conversation.
  • Using extreme detail, write down what you have been doing for the past one hour today. Think about your thoughts, feelings and actions during this time.
  • Make a list of potential character names for your next story. You can use a fantasy name generator to help you.
  • Describe a futuristic setting. What do you think the world would look like in 100 years time?
  • Think about a recent argument you had with someone. Would you change anything about it? How would you resolve an argument in the future?
  • Describe a fantasy world. What kind of creatures live in this world? What is the climate like? What everyday challenges would a typical citizen of this world face? You can use this fantasy world name generator for inspiration.
  • At the flip of a switch, you turn into a dragon. What kind of dragon would you be? Describe your appearance, special abilities, likes and dislikes. You can use a dragon name generator to give yourself a cool dragon name.
  • Pick your favourite book or a famous story. Now change the point of view. For example, you could rewrite the fairytale , Cinderella. This time around, Prince Charming could be the main character. What do you think Prince Charming was doing, while Cinderella was cleaning the floors and getting ready for the ball?
  • Pick a random writing prompt and use it to write a short story. Check out this collection of over 300 writing prompts for kids to inspire you. 
  • Write a shopping list for a famous character in history. Imagine if you were Albert Einstein’s assistant, what kind of things would he shop for on a weekly basis?
  • Create a fake advertisement poster for a random object that is near you right now. Your goal is to convince the reader to buy this object from you.
  • What is the worst (or most annoying) sound that you can imagine? Describe this sound in great detail, so your reader can understand the pain you feel when hearing this sound.
  • What is your favourite song at the moment? Pick one line from this song and describe a moment in your life that relates to this line.
  •  You’re hosting an imaginary dinner party at your house. Create a list of people you would invite, and some party invites. Think about the theme of the dinner party, the food you will serve and entertainment for the evening. 
  • You are waiting to see your dentist in the waiting room. Write down every thought you are having at this moment in time. 
  • Make a list of your greatest fears. Try to think of at least three fears. Now write a short story about a character who is forced to confront one of these fears. 
  • Create a ‘Wanted’ poster for a famous villain of your choice. Think about the crimes they have committed, and the reward you will give for having them caught. 
  • Imagine you are a journalist for the ‘Imagine Forest Times’ newspaper. Your task is to get an exclusive interview with the most famous villain of all time. Pick a villain of your choice and interview them for your newspaper article. What questions would you ask them, and what would their responses be?
  •  In a school playground, you see the school bully hurting a new kid. Write three short stories, one from each perspective in this scenario (The bully, the witness and the kid getting bullied).
  • You just won $10 million dollars. What would you spend this money on?
  • Pick a random animal, and research at least five interesting facts about this animal. Write a short story centred around one of these interesting facts. 
  • Pick a global issue that you are passionate about. This could be climate change, black lives matters, women’s rights etc. Now create a campaign poster for this global issue. 
  • Write an acrostic poem about an object near you right now (or even your own name). You could use a poetry idea generator to inspire you.
  • Imagine you are the head chef of a 5-star restaurant. Recently the business has slowed down. Your task is to come up with a brand-new menu to excite customers. Watch this video prompt on YouTube to inspire you.
  • What is your favourite food of all time? Imagine if this piece of food was alive, what would it say to you?
  • If life was one big musical, what would you be singing about right now? Write the lyrics of your song. 
  • Create and describe the most ultimate villain of all time. What would their traits be? What would their past look like? Will they have any positive traits?
  • Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: Every time I look out of the window, I…
  • You have just made it into the local newspaper, but what for? Write down at least five potential newspaper headlines . Here’s an example, Local Boy Survives a Deadly Illness.
  • If you were a witch or a wizard, what would your specialist area be and why? You might want to use a Harry Potter name generator or a witch name generator for inspiration.
  • What is your favourite thing to do on a Saturday night? Write a short story centred around this activity. 
  • Your main character has just received the following items: A highlighter, a red cap, a teddy bear and a fork. What would your character do with these items? Can you write a story using these items? 
  • Create a timeline of your own life, from birth to this current moment. Think about the key events in your life, such as birthdays, graduations, weddings and so on. After you have done this, you can pick one key event from your life to write a story about. 
  • Think of a famous book or movie you like. Rewrite a scene from this book or movie, where the main character is an outsider. They watch the key events play out, but have no role in the story. What would their actions be? How would they react?
  • Three very different characters have just won the lottery. Write a script for each character, as they reveal the big news to their best friend.  
  • Write a day in the life story of three different characters. How does each character start their day? What do they do throughout the day? And how does their day end?
  •  Write about the worst experience in your life so far. Think about a time when you were most upset or angry and describe it. 
  • Imagine you’ve found a time machine in your house. What year would you travel to and why?
  • Describe your own superhero. Think about their appearance, special abilities and their superhero name. Will they have a secret identity? Who is their number one enemy?
  • What is your favourite country in the world? Research five fun facts about this country and use one to write a short story. 
  • Set yourself at least three writing goals. This could be a good way to motivate yourself to write every day. For example, one goal might be to write at least 150 words a day. 
  • Create a character description based on the one fact, three fiction rule. Think about one fact or truth about yourself. And then add in three fictional or fantasy elements. For example, your character could be the same age as you in real life, this is your one fact. And the three fictional elements could be they have the ability to fly, talk in over 100 different languages and have green skin. 
  • Describe the perfect person. What traits would they have? Think about their appearance, their interests and their dislikes. 
  • Keep a daily journal or diary. This is a great way to keep writing every day. There are lots of things you can write about in your journal, such as you can write about the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ of your day. Think about anything that inspired you or anything that upset you, or just write anything that comes to mind at the moment. 
  • Write a book review or a movie review. If you’re lost for inspiration, just watch a random movie or read any book that you can find. Then write a critical review on it. Think about the best parts of the book/movie and the worst parts. How would you improve the book or movie?
  • Write down a conversation between yourself. You can imagine talking to your younger self or future self (i.e. in 10 years’ time). What would you tell them? Are there any lessons you learned or warnings you need to give? Maybe you could talk about what your life is like now and compare it to their life?
  • Try writing some quick flash fiction stories . Flash fiction is normally around 500 words long, so try to stay within this limit.
  • Write a six-word story about something that happened to you today or yesterday. A six-word story is basically an entire story told in just six words. Take for example: “Another football game ruined by me.” or “A dog’s painting sold for millions.” – Six-word stories are similar to writing newspaper headlines. The goal is to summarise your story in just six words. 
  • The most common monsters or creatures used in stories include vampires, werewolves , dragons, the bigfoot, sirens and the loch-ness monster. In a battle of intelligence, who do you think will win and why?
  • Think about an important event in your life that has happened so far, such as a birthday or the birth of a new sibling. Now using the 5 W’s and 1 H technique describe this event in great detail. The 5 W’s include: What, Who, Where, Why, When and the 1 H is: How. Ask yourself questions about the event, such as what exactly happened on that day? Who was there? Why was this event important? When and where did it happen? And finally, how did it make you feel?
  • Pretend to be someone else. Think about someone important in your life. Now put yourself into their shoes, and write a day in the life story about being them. What do you think they do on a daily basis? What situations would they encounter? How would they feel?
  • Complete this sentence in at least 10 different ways: I remember…
  • Write about your dream holiday. Where would you go? Who would you go with? And what kind of activities would you do?
  • Which one item in your house do you use the most? Is it the television, computer, mobile phone, the sofa or the microwave? Now write a story of how this item was invented. You might want to do some research online and use these ideas to build up your story. 
  • In exactly 100 words, describe your bedroom. Try not to go over or under this word limit.
  • Make a top ten list of your favourite animals. Based on this list create your own animal fact file, where you provide fun facts about each animal in your list.
  • What is your favourite scene from a book or a movie? Write down this scene. Now rewrite the scene in a different genre, such as horror, comedy, drama etc.
  •  Change the main character of a story you recently read into a villain. For example, you could take a popular fairytale such as Jack and the Beanstalk, but this time re-write the story to make Jack the villain of the tale.
  • Complete the following sentence in at least 10 different ways: Do you ever wonder…
  • What does your name mean? Research the meaning of your own name, or a name that interests you. Then use this as inspiration for your next story. For example, the name ‘Marty’ means “Servant Of Mars, God Of War”. This could make a good concept for a sci-fi story.
  • Make a list of three different types of heroes (or main characters) for potential future stories.
  • If someone gave you $10 dollars, what would you spend it on and why?
  • Describe the world’s most boring character in at least 100 words. 
  • What is the biggest problem in the world today, and how can you help fix this issue?
  • Create your own travel brochure for your hometown. Think about why tourists might want to visit your hometown. What is your town’s history? What kind of activities can you do? You could even research some interesting facts. 
  • Make a list of all your favourite moments or memories in your life. Now pick one to write a short story about.
  • Describe the scariest and ugliest monster you can imagine. You could even draw a picture of this monster with your description.
  • Write seven haikus, one for each colour of the rainbow. That’s red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. 
  • Imagine you are at the supermarket. Write down at least three funny scenarios that could happen to you at the supermarket. Use one for your next short story. 
  • Imagine your main character is at home staring at a photograph. Write the saddest scene possible. Your goal is to make your reader cry when reading this scene. 
  • What is happiness? In at least 150 words describe the feeling of happiness. You could use examples from your own life of when you felt happy.
  • Think of a recent nightmare you had and write down everything you can remember. Use this nightmare as inspiration for your next story.
  • Keep a dream journal. Every time you wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning you can quickly jot down things that you remember from your dreams. These notes can then be used as inspiration for a short story. 
  • Your main character is having a really bad day. Describe this bad day and the series of events they experience. What’s the worst thing that could happen to your character?
  • You find a box on your doorstep. You open this box and see the most amazing thing ever. Describe this amazing thing to your readers.
  • Make a list of at least five possible settings or locations for future stories. Remember to describe each setting in detail.
  • Think of something new you recently learned. Write this down. Now write a short story where your main character also learns the same thing.
  • Describe the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Your goal is to amaze your readers with its beauty. 
  • Make a list of things that make you happy or cheer you up. Try to think of at least five ideas. Now imagine living in a world where all these things were banned or against the law. Use this as inspiration for your next story.
  • Would you rather be rich and alone or poor and very popular? Write a story based on the lives of these two characters. 
  • Imagine your main character is a Librarian. Write down at least three dark secrets they might have. Remember, the best secrets are always unexpected.
  • There’s a history behind everything. Describe the history of your house. How and when was your house built? Think about the land it was built on and the people that may have lived here long before you.
  • Imagine that you are the king or queen of a beautiful kingdom. Describe your kingdom in great detail. What kind of rules would you have? Would you be a kind ruler or an evil ruler of the kingdom?
  • Make a wish list of at least three objects you wish you owned right now. Now use these three items in your next story. At least one of them must be the main prop in the story.
  • Using nothing but the sense of taste, describe a nice Sunday afternoon at your house. Remember you can’t use your other senses (i.e see, hear, smell or touch) in this description. 
  • What’s the worst pain you felt in your life? Describe this pain in great detail, so your readers can also feel it.
  • If you were lost on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, what three must-have things would you pack and why?
  • Particpate in online writing challenges or contests. Here at Imagine Forest, we offer daily writing challenges with a new prompt added every day to inspire you. Check out our challenges section in the menu.

Do you have any more fun creative writing exercises to share? Let us know in the comments below!

creative writing exercises

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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GCSE English Language Paper 1 - Creative Writing Revision

GCSE English Language Paper 1 - Creative Writing Revision

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Other

kesithana

Last updated

22 February 2018

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IMAGES

  1. Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Week One

    creative writing revision lesson

  2. Lesson Revision creative writin…: English ESL worksheets pdf & doc

    creative writing revision lesson

  3. GCSE Creative Writing Revision

    creative writing revision lesson

  4. Creative writing revision booklet: AQA

    creative writing revision lesson

  5. Creative writing revision lesson. Language Paper 1. AQA English

    creative writing revision lesson

  6. Creative Writing Workshop Lesson 6: Revision by Livia Blackburne

    creative writing revision lesson

VIDEO

  1. 10 Ideas for effective last-minute writing revision

  2. Storytelling

  3. Creative writing module 1

  4. Creative Writing

  5. Module 4 How do we design writing?

  6. Creative Writing: GCSE Additional Revision session 1

COMMENTS

  1. Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Week One

    An easy lesson plan for creative writing that will pay off later is to activate prior knowledge. Brainstorm creative, memorable, unforgettable stories with students. Share your thoughts too! You will start to build relationships with students who share the same tastes as you (and those that are completely different!).

  2. Eight Free Creative Writing Lessons

    Creative Writing Lesson Eight. The eighth lesson focuses on revision. After a mini-lesson, students partner up for peer editing. Grab lesson eight here. For our final class day, students bring revised work, and I host coffee shop readings. This is a memorable experience for students (and their teacher).

  3. Writing Skills

    Narration - the voice that tells the story, either first person (I/me) or third person (he/him/she/her). This needs to have the effect of interesting your reader in the story with a warm and ...

  4. Engaging Creative Writing Lessons for Your Students

    Creative Writing Lesson Eight: Revision After a mini-lesson about revision, students partner up for peer editing. You can use this Writing Ideas Notebook to help your students record and explore dozens of writing ideas. Meet Ami. Welcome! I'm a big believer in inspiring kids, cultivating curiosity, delight directed learning, living books ...

  5. Revision Lesson Plan

    Continually work (and work and work!) to make your writing better. 2. Give Revision Guidelines. Tell the students they they are going to find a peer review partner. Give them simple guidelines: You must give your partner at least five pieces of feedback. You can fix spelling and grammar, but these do not count toward the five pieces of feedback.

  6. Revision: Seeing Your Work Anew

    Revision: Seeing Your Work Anew. Margaret Atwood. Lesson time 08:02 min. For Margaret, revision is an opportunity to take a fresh look at your book and consider new possibilities. Learn the value of soliciting feedback from select readers, and the importance of a good line editor. Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.

  7. Creative Writing Revision Exercises

    Creative Writing Revision Exercises. These exercises are about making big changes in order to better understand the heart of your story and/or your style. Choose one that sounds interesting, fun, or appropriate to your goals. You might try something just to stretch your writing muscles or make serious revisions to the piece you're working on.

  8. Creative and descriptive writing

    Lessons and activities. Creative and descriptive writing is a great opportunity for students to explore different themes, audiences and purposes as well as demonstrate their understanding of how structure and punctuation can be used to impact a reader. From creative writing prompts to technique booklets and descriptive writing planning mats, we ...

  9. Lesson 2: Writer's Block

    Writer's block is the inability to write because the writer doesn't know what to write, doesn't know how to proceed in a piece of writing, or doesn't have the confidence to write. The condition can last for several minutes to days to weeks, and even months and years for some writers. Often, the inner critic, a still, small, critical ...

  10. PDF Creative Writing

    Creative Writing: Revision Strategies Creative Writing Revision Strategies A Brief Overview of Revision Strategies This guide describes techniques you might use to revise short, in-class exercises into longer pieces. As you've likely experienced throughout your life, writing is a recursive process; you may brainstorm, prewrite, come up with

  11. Revising

    Revision is the process of reviewing, refining, and improving written compositions. It is a crucial step in the writing process that helps students develop their writing skills and produce more polished and effective pieces of work. Revision goes beyond simply correcting spelling and grammar; it involves rethinking and reworking the content ...

  12. Collaborative Stories 2: Revising

    Overview. Using a story which has been written collaboratively, students engage in a whole-group revising process by having each student add a sentence at a time (see the ReadWriteThink lesson Collaborative Stories 1: Prewriting and Drafting ). The teacher leads this shared-revising activity to help students consider story content.

  13. 6 Creative Lessons to Inspire Secondary Writers

    MAKER SPACE. This creative lesson to inspire secondary writers is a newer approach. Turn your writer's workshop into a maker spacewith these unique ideas from Spark Creativity. It's true! Creative writing doesn't have to be intimidating. Engage students with this short story maker assignment.

  14. Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations

    This lesson focuses on the power of modeling, discussion, and conversation as tools to teach and promote qualitiy revision. Regie Routman warns teachers not to "underestimate the power of talk on writing quality. Informal conversations among students as they write influences the amount and quality of revisions students are willing to make.

  15. Creative Writing Lesson Plans

    This printable word processing lesson provides a creative writing activity. Students use story starters to type complete… Subjects: Language Arts and Writing . Creative Writing ... from scheduling and time-management to outlining to revision. Subjects: Writing Research Papers. Writing. Language Arts and Writing. Download. Add to Favorites.

  16. Revising Drafts

    Revision literally means to "see again," to look at something from a fresh, critical perspective. It is an ongoing process of rethinking the paper: reconsidering your arguments, reviewing your evidence, refining your purpose, reorganizing your presentation, reviving stale prose. But I thought revision was just fixing the commas and spelling ...

  17. Creative Writing Lesson Plans

    This 37-page document is designed for writers of novels, but many of the tips apply equally to writers of short stories. Clear, simple, and easy to read, appropriate for 5th or 6th grade (in places) and up. Adobe Reader required for access. Students write a line of poetry in response to something the teacher reads.

  18. 105 Creative Writing Exercises: 10 Min Writing Exercises

    Here are over 105 creative writing exercises to give your brain a workout and help those creative juices flow again: Set a timer for 60 seconds. Now write down as many words or phrases that come to mind at that moment. Pick any colour you like. Now start your sentence with this colour.

  19. Creative Writing Lesson Plan

    With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. ... Creative Writing Lesson Plan ...

  20. Imaginative Creative Writing Unit 9-1

    A short 5 lesson unit on Imaginative/Creative writing, created for the new GCSE English Language 9-1 spec. Contains lessons on describing setting and character, effective story openings, narrative structure (using The Simpsons) and the importance of planning. Clear assessment and success criteria checklists, which could be used for self/peer ...

  21. Creative writing

    Celebrate World Book Day in this fun and interactive KS2 guide from BBC Bitesize. KS2 English Creative writing learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers.

  22. Improving Creative Writing GCSE Lesson and Worksheets

    Examiners love to see students demonstrating their knowledge of how to use these four grammatical beauties in their creative writing, and will reward students for their efforts. 1) Minor: 'Marley was dead.' (Often used for short, snappy introductions and to emphasise a dramatic event.) 2) Simple: 'The door to the old counting-house was ...

  23. Remembrance 2018

    Watch again: This KS2 literacy Live Lesson encourages children to come up with creative writing responses based around remembrance and commemoration.

  24. GCSE English Language Paper 1

    docx, 1.32 MB. This resource includes: Specimen paper. Mark scheme. How to structure creative writing + short stories. Descriptions from novels. Mock paper. How to structure and plan a short story using slow writing methods. I use this in lessons to help students structure their writing.