As the school year starts, you have three wishes: 1) You want students to like your class and look forward to the year with you. 2) You want students to get acquainted with each other and with you (while thinking you’re super cool). 3) You want them to be ready to read and write without whining or dreading it! These 10 writing ideas are going to make your three wishes come true! I’m like a magic fairy!

1) Two Truths and a Lie (Quick Warm-Up Activity): While not a full-blown writing assignment, it eases them back in. Have students write two truths and one lie about themselves in any order in a numbered list. For example “I can play guitar,” “I have been skydiving,” “I have four dogs and a cat,” “My favorite food is sushi,” etc. In the regular classroom setting, have students take turns reading their three statements, and call on students to guess which one they think is the lie. You can even take a poll. In a distance learning situation, have them post these for their classmates to see. Instruct the class to comment on each other’s 2/3-true biographies and say which # they think is the lie. Also instruct them that, after receiving at least three comments from classmates, the student will make a comment revealing which one is the lie.

2) Compare-and-Contrast This Past Summer to a Prior One: It occurred to me that summers these days are probably a lot different than they used to be for most students. And who knows how many vacays got messed up again! Anyway, it was a light bulb moment for me thinking how they could write a compare-and-contrast essay comparing and contrasting the summer they just experienced with some prior summer! So, I wrote up a free guided step-by-step printable (& made Google Slides too!) that takes them through the process of coming up with ideas, filling out a choice of graphic organizers that are included, then creating the finished product. Get your WRITING FREEBIE here.

3) Write a Limerick About Yourself: This is a great way to have students introduce themselves in a very lighthearted, silly way while practicing rhyme, meter, and rhythm! Again, I made a guided printable (& Google Slides) that takes them from how to do it, samples, brainstorming, and then writing. It’s FREE so get yours today!

Here’s one I made up:

There was a sweet woman named Katie

Who was a most beautiful lady

But her moods were unreal

We were like, “What is her deal?”

But then she finally chilled out at age eighty. 

4) Write a Five Senses Concrete Imagery Poem: This gets them to write about a summer memory, a topic they enjoy, and gets them to practice using concrete imagery by having them think in sensory terms. In the past, I had them use stationary I provided just to jazz them up and add some flair, so I included some stationary papers, samples of poems done, and step-by-step guidance in ANOTHER FREEBIE LESSON IN PRINTABLE AND DIGITAL FORMATS! WOW! Here’s a sample:

5. An Autobiography Block: This is similar to the biography block lesson I recently posted for students to present a biography book report. It occurred to me they could do the same things but about themselves! There are six sides to display information and then a small symbolic item can go inside. I made ANOTHER FREE LESSON for them to create it (template and rubric included) to create six sides of the box. And a small symbolic item goes inside. Get your free lesson with template and rubric.

8) Writing About Me With Hyperbole and Simile: Students write an explanatory, informative text about themselves, but add hyperbole to it to make it really funny and obviously exaggerated.  It basically becomes a tall tale, or a legend. See below for the sample I wrote, and go grab the FREE lesson that has the step-by-step guided writing printable, which is also available digitally in Google Slides. It is a quick, fun writing activity that gets students acquainted in a silly, non-scary way. And it requires writing skills, so there you go! Go get yours free today.

Katie the Incredible Rollerblader

I am so good at rollerblading. When I rollerblade, crowds of people gather around just to see my impressive skills. You can hear people getting on their cell phones to say, “Dude, you gotta get over here and see the most amazing rollerblader I have ever seen!” People beg me for my autograph like I am a movie star or something. I am so fast, it is as if there are engines in each one of my rollerblades. I am like a jet. I even had a race with a sports car one time and I won – easily. Not only am I fast, but I can do awesome tricks. I can jump over just about any obstacle: cars, mailboxes, people, you name it. I once jumped over a tree! And flips are no problem. I make flips look so easy, it is like I am coin being tossed in the air during a coin toss. I jump up so high and do about 15 flips on the way down. And don’t even get me started on how many laps I can do at the roller rink. I can do about 1,000 laps around the roller rink in one minute. I truly am the best rollerblader on the entire planet!

9) Create-a-Critter Explanatory Writing Activity: In a nutshell, students think of an animal that doesn’t exist such as a hybrid like the “jaccoon” (jaguar and raccoon) “durtle” (dog and turtle), or “mooda” (moose and panda). Then they describe what it looks like using their best descriptive writing skills . Then a partner takes the description and tries to draw it based on that. Then, they do a comparison. Laughter ensues! You can facilitate this too with this free lesson in PDF or Google Slides that does most of the work for you. See the samples: a jaccoon, a mooda, and a durtle.  

By the way, there is an alternate version “Create a Dog” which is the same but is all about dogs. GO GET YOURS FREE.

10) What’s In My Head: I’ve used this head template for so many lessons such as having students examine a character’s thoughts and feelings, or saying what they learned at the end of the school year, and now they can use it for back to school writing to examine their thoughts and feelings, and let others see them to get to know each other. Here is a sample of one Anne Frank and a teen, but you would have them fill it in based on their own heads! Here is a template and samples that show Anne Frank’s thoughts plus a girl in high school (both actually based on book characters, but you get the idea).

This template is available free in both easy-print and online distance learning versions as part of my “Analyzing Characterization 6 Ways With 6 Graphic Organizers FREEBIE” product. And, check out the related Analyzing Characters From 6 Stories 6 Ways Blog Post that shows how they’re used.