We will update this post with a list of writing prompts we have used in our writing sessions so far. Feel free to contact us with any ideas of your own!
1. Why is Ian having trouble steering the car? (Click here for Esther's response and click here for Christine's!) 2. "I remember ..." (Click here for Christine's response and Click here for Esther's.) 3. Write about unicorns (Click here for Christine's response. Click here for Esther's response. Click here for a guest contribution from Sunny Ganeva.) 4. Pick up the nearest book. Now pick two numbers - these represent the page number and the line of text you will use as a prompt. On July 1, we picked: "Until her last moment on Earth she was unaware that her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman was a daily disaster." (Click here for Christine's response.) 5. Imagine you're in a courtroom having to defend yourself against a murder charge. The medical examiner has spoken about the autopsy and your DNA is present. There are eyewitness accounts placing you at the crime scene, your fingerprints are there and they are on the murder weapon. The family of the victim is there looking at you during all of this. The oddest thing is that the person you seem to have murdered doesn't actually exist. You know this, and you know everyone does as well yet they're all sending you to prison for the murder of a person who doesn't exist. How do you argue your innocence against a jury who isn't in on the game and are only going off what they see and hear?
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This story came from a "Pass the Paper" exercise between group members at the last meeting. Keep in mind that we couldn't see what the others were writing as we went along, only the previous person's contribution. Enjoy!
Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Corpse Lucy lay surrounded by her sleepover friends, each with their index fingers and middle fingers slightly under her as they chanted. She was beginning to have doubts but couldn't back out now. It was okay - they were her sisters now. Weren't they? This exercise was found and facilitated by Amanda Penn, she and Esther worked and lived together while they were Fulbright English Teaching Assistants at Sedibeng FET College in Vereeniging, South Africa.
They co-led a library club, which consisted of two parts- Poetry Society and Leadership Society. Using the poem "Where I'm From," by George Ella Lyon (see below). Check out the template and examples here: http://www.pearlandisd.org/webpages/swatkins/files/where%20i'm%20from%20template.student%20exemplars.pdf Esther's 'I'm From' poem We had come across this idea on the interwebs recently and thought it looked like great, creative fun. So when Annie (shout out!) in Khanom provided me (Christine) with some pages of an old dictionary, I went to town writing recycled poetry.
Basically, you block out text highlighting your chosen words and create a visual poem of your own. Check out the link above for a pretty example and click here to see some of Christine's. PS - For the book lovers out there, don't fear: This dictionary had been destroyed by some playful pups and was put to good use. I would be interested in making some more during one of our sessions if anyone has some old, beat up, unusable books to donate! This past Wednesday, we tried a new exercise, aptly named Who, What, Why, Where, When. We went around in a circle each coming up with one of the elements and then wrote stories based off this prompt. For an example, here's what we came up with this week:
Who - A sloth What - He wants to learn how to talk Why - Because he wants to play the guitar Where - Cat Heaven When - the 1920's Our resulting stories were all different and pretty amazing. Links to these as we post them can be found below. Christine's response Esther's response This exercise developed one Wednesday night when neither of us (Christine and Esther) felt very inspired to write. But it was Wednesday, so the show must go on! We began by writing down 10 words - the first random words that came into our heads. They were random indeed, which turned out to be perfect. What to do with them? In a moment of telepathy, we decided to write poems using the 10 words. They ended up being totally unexpected but amazing in their own right. (For Christine's resulting poem, click here.)
The problem was, now that we knew we were going to write a poem, thinking of 10 truly random words - without taking into account what they would be used for - was impossible. So we rectified the situation with an introduction of the "Grab Bag." In the Grab Bag, we have written down on paper a variety of writing genres. They can be anything, but right now ours include: Poem, short story (fiction), horror story, a 4-panel story board, an advertisement, a love letter, a break-up letter, an apology letter, a twitter status (144-character max), a "how to" guide, a children's book story, a legal document or citation, and a rap. Once you have your 10 words, grab a paper from the Grab Bag, and that is what you will be using them to write. This is a great activity to use at the start of a creative session to get juices going or just among friends - the results of ours have been highly entertaining so far! For some examples, click the links below. 4-Panel Comic (Christine) Poem (Christine) Legal Citation (Esther) How-To Guide (Esther) Poem (Esther) Poem (Kiki) Poem (Zuri) This exercise is great when you a have a big group. Take a piece of paper and choose one person to come up with a title. That person then passes it to the person next to them. That person writes one sentence, folds the title and passes it to the next person. Each person can only see the one sentence that the person wrote before them. Keep this going until you have filled up a page or if you have a lot of people you can set a timer.
Here is an example of one that Christine, Esther, Kiki and Sunny wrote this week: Title: Sinister Spiders The alley was dark and littered with wood. Perfect platforms lying idle in the night. Like leaves strewn all around after a ferocious autumn storm. The cool whip of winter's welcome, white whispers wishing for her whim. She lay on her warm rug by the crackling fire, waiting for the creepy crawly thing that she knew was lurking nearby. And then out he came- eight legs; hairy, rising higher than his back. Eyes green, blazing and fangs dripping with red. He was wearing red, sparkling high-heeled shoes. Once the show began, the audience managed to sit back, relax and enjoy the true beauty of the glamour that stood before them. The glitter of life. This activity can be conducted with two or more people - the more the merrier! Everybody begins free writing. As you come across a word you think is interesting in your story, shout it out. Now the others have to incorporate that word into their stories as well. You can go around a circle shouting words or alternate between two people, or just let anybody shout out at random.
This exercise is a great test of your adaptability at times, when your writing mates shout out something completely different from what you have going on in your story. But that's what makes it fun! See how different your stories are, even though they incorporate the same words throughout. Enjoy! Here are a couple of examples of this exercise in action: Ellie Be a Tree Start with an anagram activity - choose a long-ish word, or one with a good variety of letters, and compile a list of as many words as you can make by rearranging the letters in that word. (Tip: We discovered that a really great word to use is catastrophe. We got almost 100 three-letter-or-more words out of it, and there were plenty more, I'm sure!)
Now that you have those words, use them to write a story. You can try to use all of the words or just use as many as possible. Similar to the Popcorn activity, this one really stretches your imagination as you try to compile the words into something interesting. For an example of a piece resulting from this exercise, click here. |
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