Writing Prompts

• Show the kids photographs of various people. Make them write their impressions about the person. Then make them pair up or form groups and compare answers. They finish by writing about why the group's answers were the same or different. I've also done this one with photos of famous paintings.

• Activities where they write a letter then switch papers with another kid and write back work well. At Christmas, the obvious one is a letter to Santa, but I've done stuff like "pretend that you are a human who is writing their first letter to a penpal from another planet."

• Photocopy the pictures out of a picture book. Make them write a new version of the story.

• Take a common story that the students will all know and make them write their own version of it. If they are creative enough to handle it, make them change the story in some way.

• We did some activities last year involving photos of "famous" (I think only 1 student out of 20 recognised Hitler) and non-famous people. Their comments were interesting and insightful - whilst at the same time being somewhat disturbing. The activity was used as a precis to a series of lessons on stereotypes.

• Make a Newspaper and get the students to brainstorm the various articles then split into groups and write their articles. Or everyone just focus on one type of article. (e.g. Head line page, sports, Horoscopes etc)

When teaching newspapers, be sure to include breakdowns of a news article as an example. Don't forget to teach students about Headlines, and making a catchy first sentence to hook readers.

• Write their own fairytales where they can also draw a picture of their story. I did this at Tsu last year some of imaginative stories they came up with were pretty cool. Or twists on popular Japanese stories.

• Again at Tsu last year ( you may need to spread it over a couple of lessons). Everyone take a letter from the Japanese Kana Alphabet. Everyone has to think of something Japanese(e.g. Do - Doraeman, Tsu - Tsu city, HA - Hanami, or some of the teacher’s names!). They then write a short description of that thing but without mentioning the name. In the end, everyone splits into groups and hears everyone else's description and has to guess what it is. We also got them to draw the items(drawings of the teachers where hilarious) and then showed them on the projector after guessing. Every class seemed to enjoy it.

• Won't fill up your entire 40 minutes, but I'm getting my students to start an English Journal. Every week for about 5 minutes they have to write in their journal. No Japanese before hand. From their brains to their paper. I make a new topic handout with helpful expressions once a week, for the students who can't think of what to write.

• Write your own obituary - what do the students hope to accomplish and be remembered for in their lifetime?

• Watch a short movie clip and then pretend they are someone in that scene relating the events to their friend.

• The year 2040 - what is the world like? What technology will we have? What is the political, environmental social situation? What great inventions will there be that will change our lives?

• Picture Caption contests

• Write your own comic - take a comic like Calvin and Hobbes or Penny Arcade etc and blank out the speech so that your students have to write their own dialogue. Possibly make them present it.

• Post Secret is a website where people are invited to write a secret on a post card they decorate. I selected a few from the website and had the students write a story about them.

• Inspired Writing. I played an instrumental song and first had the students write down ideas that it brought to mind. Colours, animals, actions, then write a poem or story about it.

• How-To articles are fun for students to write. It's useful for teachings students vocab like First, Next, Thirdly, Lastly, Finally, and the topics they choose to write about are always interesting.

• Reviews - show examples of movie, tourist attraction or restaurant reviews and break them down. Have the students rate the places they have stayed at for school trips, or eaten at with friends. Some of the students have too much fun writing nasty things though.

• I also taught my students how to write the classic 5-Paragraph Essay to help them with University Entrance exams and other placement exams. It took several weeks of trial and error but in the end they produced really good writing and they told me that after my classes the English exams were easy!