how to teach creative writing for grade 2

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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that  every  student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a  seven-step method  that will  scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process  from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

• personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
• imaginative scenarios
• prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
• lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
• fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

• What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
• What might make us question those beliefs?
• What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
• How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

• allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
• help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
• warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting  is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note:  at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

• a work in progress.

Remind them that  if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

• demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
• taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
• providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs also gives you access to an ever-expanding collection of over 3,500 online books!

2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

• use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

• Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
• Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
• Which parts am I most uncertain about?
• Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
• Are there places where I could have used a better word?
• Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to  read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note:  if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun  marking  your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on  how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for  supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

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How to Teach Creative Writing

Last Updated: March 13, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 117,240 times.

Creative writing is one of the most enjoyable types of writing for students. Not only does it allow students to explore their imaginations, but it helps them to structure their ideas and produce writing that they can be proud of. However, creative writing is a relatively difficult type of writing to teach and offers challenges to both new and seasoned teachers alike. Fortunately, though, with some work of their own, teachers can better develop their own abilities to teach creative writing.

Providing Students with the Fundamentals

• Theme. The theme of a story is its message or the main idea behind it.
• Setting. The setting of a story is the location or time it takes place in.
• Plot. The plot is the overall story, narrative, or sequence of events.
• Characterization. Characterization is how a character or person in a story is explained or presented to the reader.
• Conflict and dramatic action. Conflict and dramatic action are the main events of focus in the story. These events are often tense or exciting and are used to lure the reader in. [1] X Research source

• Explain how your students, as writers, can appeal to the humanity of their readers. One great way to do this is to ask them to explore character development. By developing the characters in their story, readers will become invested in the story.
• Discuss the triggers that engage readers in an effective story. Most great stories start with a problem, which is solved with the resolution, or conclusion of the story. Encourage students to create an engaging problem that will hook the readers in the first few pages of a short story or novel. [2] X Research source

• By setting the tone and atmosphere of a story, the author will establish his or her attitude to the subject and the feel of the story.
• Tone can be positive, neutral, or negative. [3] X Research source
• Atmosphere can be dark, happy, or neither.
• Descriptive words like “darkness” or “sunshine” can help set both the tone and atmosphere. [4] X Research source

• Active verbs are used to show action in the story.
• Active verbs are very often a better alternative to passive voice, as it keeps your writing clear and concise for your readers. [5] X Research source
• For example, instead of writing “The cat was chased by the dog” your student can write “The dog chased the cat.”

Guiding Students through the Process

• Tell your students to brainstorm about ideas they are truly interested in.
• If you must restrict the general topic, make sure that your students have a good amount of wiggle room within the broad topic of the assignment.
• Never assign specific topics and force students to write. This will undermine the entire process. [6] X Research source

• Letting your students know that the outline is non-binding. They don’t have to follow it in later steps of the writing process.
• Telling your students that the parts of their outline should be written very generally.
• Recommending that your students create several outlines, or outlines that go in different directions (in terms of plot and other elements of storytelling). The more avenues your students explore, the better. [7] X Research source

• Tell students that there is no “right” way to write a story.
• Let students know that their imaginations should guide their way.
• Show students examples of famous writing that breaks normal patterns, like the works of E.E. Cummings, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare.
• Ask students to forget about any expectations they think you have for how a story should be written. [8] X Research source

• Gather the first drafts and comment on the student's work. For first drafts, you want to check on the overall structure of the draft, proper word use, punctuation, spelling, and overall cohesion of the piece. [9] X Research source
• Remind them that great writers usually wrote several drafts before they were happy with their stories.
• Avoid grading drafts for anything other than completion.

• Let students pair off to edit each others' papers.
• Have your students join groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to go edit and provide feedback on each member’s story.
• Provide guidance so students contribute constructively to the group discussion. [10] X Research source

• Reward your students if they are innovative or do something unique and truly creative.
• Avoid evaluating your students based on a formula.
• Assess and review your own standards as often as you can. Remember that the point is to encourage your students' creativity. [11] X Research source

Spurring Creativity

• Teach your students about a variety of writers and genres.
• Have your students read examples of different genres.
• Promote a discussion within your class of the importance of studying literature.
• Ask students to consider the many ways literature improves the world and asks individuals to think about their own lives. [12] X Research source

• Make sure your room is stocked with a wide variety of fiction stories.
• Make sure your room is stocked with plenty of paper for your students to write on.
• Line up other writing teachers or bring in writers from the community to talk to and encourage your students.

• Cut out pictures and photographs from magazines, comic books, and newspapers.
• Have your students cut out photographs and pictures and contribute them to your bank.
• Consider having your students randomly draw a given number of photos and pictures and writing a short story based on what they draw.
• This technique can help students overcome writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [13] X Research source

• Pair your students with students from another grade in your school.
• Allow your students to write stories that younger students in your school would like to read.
• Pair your students with another student in the class and have them evaluate each others' work. [14] X Research source

• If you just have a typical classroom to work with, make sure to put inspirational posters or other pictures on the walls.
• Open any curtains so students can see outside.
• If you have the luxury of having an extra classroom or subdividing your own classroom, create a comfortable space with a lot of inspirational visuals.
• Writing spaces can help break writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [15] X Research source

• Involve students in the printing process.
• Publication does not have to be expensive or glossy.
• Copies can be made in the school workroom if possible or each student might provide a copy for the others in the group.
• A collection of the stories can be bound with a simple stapler or brads.
• Seek out other opportunities for your students to publish their stories.

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You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/creative-writing-101
• ↑ https://kobowritinglife.com/2012/10/14/six-tips-for-engaging-readers-within-two-seconds-the-hook-in-fiction-and-memoir/
• ↑ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/in-writing-tone-is-the-author%E2%80%99s-attitude/
• ↑ http://ourenglishclass.net/class-notes/writing/the-writing-process/craft/tone-and-mood/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/
• ↑ http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-steps-to-creating-a-flexible-outline-for-any-story
• ↑ http://thewritepractice.com/the-formula-to-write-a-novel/
• ↑ https://student.unsw.edu.au/editing-your-essay
• ↑ http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/5-promoting-creative-writing
• ↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/grade-creative-writing-paper-3698.html
• ↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/educating-teenagers-emotions-through-literature/476790/
• ↑ http://www.wrightingwords.com/for-teachers/5-tips-for-teaching-creative-writing/

About This Article

To teach creative writing, start by introducing your students to the core elements of storytelling, like theme, setting, and plot, while reminding them that there’s no formula for combining these elements to create a story. Additionally, explain how important it is to use tone and atmosphere, along with active verbs, to write compelling stories that come alive. When your students have chosen their topics, have them create story outlines before they begin writing. Then, read their rough drafts and provide feedback to keep them on the right path to storytelling success. For tips from our English reviewer on how to spur creativity in your students, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How To Teach Second Grade Writing

Have you ever found yourself googling, ‘how to teach second graders to write?’ or tearing your hair out wondering how do you teach writing in grade 2? You don’t need to worry anymore! In this post, I’m going to share the steps that you need to take so that you know exactly how to teach second grade writing!

Teaching writing to second graders involves building upon the foundational skills they learned in first grade and helping them further develop their writing abilities. Here are 10 strategies and tips to effectively teach writing to second grade students!

1. Review foundational skills

Begin the school year by reviewing foundational writing skills, such as letter formation, capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure. Use engaging activities and games to reinforce these skills.

It’s also wise to complete a pre-assessment ASAP to gauge your students’ writing abilities. You can then design lessons that meet your students where they are at. Every cohort is different and some students may still be really struggling with letter formation!

You may not be able to dive straight into your narrative writing unit, for example. You might need to spend quite a few weeks working on phonics and ensuring that your students know how to correctly write sentences. Sentence building activities are perfect for this!

2. Model writing

Demonstrate the writing process by modeling your own writing and thinking aloud. Show students how to generate ideas, plan, draft, revise, and edit their writing. Use anchor charts or visual aids to illustrate each step of the writing process.

Start by modeling your own writing piece from start to finish. Next, get your students involved in the writing process. Ask them to contribute ideas and create writing pieces together as a whole class.

3. Expand vocabulary

Introduce new vocabulary words related to various topics or writing genres. Engage students in meaningful conversations and expose them to rich vocabulary through read-alouds and shared reading experiences. Encourage them to use new words in their writing.

4. Provide writing prompts

Offer a variety of writing prompts to stimulate students’ creativity and give them opportunities to practice different writing genres. Prompts can include personal narratives, descriptive writing, opinion pieces, or informative texts.

Prompts are great for your students who are stuck for ideas. But it’s also important to allow for some choice within the prompts to foster student engagement.

If you’re looking for  second grade writing prompts , you’re in luck!

5. Teach organizational structure

Help students understand the organization and structure of different types of writing. Teach them how to organize their ideas into paragraphs with clear topic sentences and supporting details. Use graphic organizers, such as story maps or flowcharts, to help students plan their writing. Check out these graphic organizers!

6. Develop sentence variety

Encourage students to vary their sentence structure by incorporating different sentence types (e.g., simple, compound) and sentence openers (e.g., adverbs, prepositional phrases). Model and provide examples of well-constructed sentences to help students expand their writing skills.

7. Foster revision and editing

Teach students the importance of revising and editing their writing. Guide them in reviewing their work forspelling and proper grammar. Allow your students to work in pairs and give each other feedback on their writing.

8. Incorporate technology

Integrate technology, such as word documents or Google Slides, to enhance students’ writing experiences. Let’s face it, kids love tech! Teach them basic typing skills and how to navigate these platforms.

9. Promote reading and research

Encourage students to read extensively and conduct research to gather information for their writing. Teach them how to use books and reliable websites to gather facts and support their ideas. This is especially key during an informational writing unit! Students will love researching things like animals and countries. Be sure to check out these research report activities .

10. Celebrate and share writing

Provide regular opportunities for students to share their writing with others. This can include sharing within the classroom, creating a class blog or website, or publishing their work in a class book. Celebrate their achievements and growth as writers. WOW work bulletin boards are perfect for this!

Remember to provide a supportive and inclusive classroom environment where all students feel encouraged to take risks and express themselves through writing. Differentiate instruction to meet the needs of individual students, providing additional support or challenges as necessary.

By fostering a love for writing and providing meaningful experiences, you can help second grade students develop their writing skills and confidence!

Are you a 2nd grade teacher struggling to teach writing? Check out my 2nd grade writing curriculum here!

Psst! If you’d love to learn more about how to teach writing and get FREE writing prompts, click  here!

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12 ideas for teaching creative writing

Teaching creative writing to kids can be one of the most rewarding parts of teaching the English curriculum. But with so many statutory requirements to hit in a portfolio of writing, it can be difficult to capture truly creative writing as well as instil enthusiasm for the art.

Some of your class will really enjoy creative writing from scratch. For others, this will be a daunting experience. We have gathered together a collection of simple ideas for teaching creative writing to help your pupils smash writing tasks.

Creative writing tips for teachers

• Use a workshop-style environment
• Show your class how it’s done
• Draw up a storyboard
• Encourage book reading
• Re-write a known story
• Show, don’t tell
• Inspire them with video
• Deconstruct characters
• Give your pupils freedom
• Use story-starters and prompts
• Elaborate with a story generator
• Get the children to take creative writing home

1. Use a workshop-style environment

Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on. Some may look to write fiction pieces and use ideas around storytelling. Another group could focus on word games, spelling and puzzle-solving. There could even just be a group for reading stories and learning the craft!

All children are able to work in groups, but each pupil will have one-to-one time with you too. As long as assignments and tasks are rotated, children will find their favourite part and be more engaged as a result. Working this way can also lead to competitions and collaborative creative writing work.

2. Show your class how it’s done

The adage is ‘practise what you preach’. When it comes to creative writing, this means you should be showing the class what the process is.

Doing live creative writing sessions for your class can give them perspective on how to build a story effectively. More importantly, it gives them chance to see how it’s OK to make mistakes, how to take criticism and that they shouldn’t be afraid to create whatever they feel they want to. You could even get your more able (and confident!) pupils to live write on the board for the class to gather inspiration from; pupil modelling can be a really fantastic assessment for learning activity.

3. Draw up a storyboard

Some visual cues might be the key to unlocking greater creativity in your pupils. Instead of writing out a story, why not begin with a storyboard? It doesn’t need to be a work of art – simple stick people will do the job.

Once you’ve drawn out the basis of your story, you can then start to write down more detail to really flesh out their story.

4. Encourage book reading

If there is one place anyone can go to experience good storytelling, it’s in books. Reading brings a whole host of benefits to children form an educational standpoint – many of which apply to creative writing.

To increase vocabulary, improve creativity and enflame imaginations (plus a whole lot more), we should always be looking for more reading opportunities for pupils in class. Beyond the classroom, encourage them to do as much reading as possible at home too.

5. Re-write a known story

If you’re struggling for ideas, why not take inspiration from one of the countless legendary stories already out there. Give a classic story a twist and ask the class to elaborate on it:

• Three Billy Goats Gruff are the ones under the bridge, and you’re trying to cross it
• At the top of Jack’s Beanstalk is Mars
• Aladdin rubs his lamp, but what are his three wishes?
• The three bears are the ones sneaking into Goldilocks’ house

6. Show, don’t tell

It’s a tenant of good storytelling across many different mediums. The idea of show, don’t tell means the writer should avoid explaining every aspect of what a character is feeling or thinking and instead focus on different ways of revealing that information in the story.

For example, give your class some basic information like “the boy was sad”, and ask to write a sentence that would display that information more creatively. It could become, “the boy’s heart sank, his head bowed and he sniffled as the tears began to fall.”

This way, the reader is able to unravel the emotions involved in the story themselves, rather than being told.

7. Inspire them with video

YouTube is a treasure trove of learning resources and other helpful content that can boost a pupil’s creative writing capability. With a quick search, you’ll find plenty of interviews with famed writers sharing their experiences in the job.

Use these to dig a little deeper into the mind of a writer. What is there process for coming up with ideas? What are the challenges they face? This type of content can provide key takeaways that pupils can bring into their next creative writing task.

8. Deconstruct characters

A simple but effective method for getting into the routine of character building involves writing down what makes them tick. Take a famous character from a book or a famous children’s TV show. Split a piece of paper into a grid, and label them with things like “what makes them happy”, “what makes them angry” “How would they react in a certain situation?”

Then as a class fill out the grid. You could use them method when a pupil comes up with a new character for their story, helping them to get in the correct mindsight for creating characters.

9. Give your pupils freedom

There will be a lot of children in your class who thrive when given the freedom to write. Always remember to set aside time for your pupils to have an open-ended opportunity to write, allowing them to express their favourite topics. If it’s too open for some children, then proposing a particular topic for this time can help too.

10. Use story-starters and prompts

Story-starters or prompts are great for getting the creative juices flowing. It helps pupils to avoid the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. We’ve got a whole load of story starters for KS1 and KS2 creative writers, but here are just a few to get the juices flowing:

• It was there and then it was gone! As quick as a flash…
• This was it! I now had the power to change anything.
• A million pounds sat there in the suitcase. “What should we do with it?” I said.
• The three friends set out on their journey, with nothing but each other to help them for what lied ahead.
• The car lurched down the road when suddenly a thud came from below.
• The tap on my shoulder woke me. “Shhh” she said with a finger pressed to her lips. “Follow me.”

11. Elaborate with a story generator

Generate ideas and get a story rolling with a tried and tested method: the story generator. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

• Find three bags
• Create three lists: one for characters (a footballer, a dog, an astronaut etc), one for scenes (an unknown planet, a bedroom, a park etc) and one for the situation (looking for a lost coin, meets a talking dog, during a big thunderstorm etc)
• Cut out each of the ideas and group them together in the bags. You have three bags filled with dozens of possibilities for different stories.
• Ask a pupil to reach into each bag so they then have a character, a scene and a situation. This is the basis of their story.

12. Get the children to take creative writing home

The home environment will be a more comfortable or possibly, a more inspiring place for children to write their stories. Encouraging parents to get onside with this can sometimes be a battle, but one worth fighting. Sharing their stories and creations across different audiences is a valuable experience for children, whether that be in class, at home or safely online. The perfect flipped classroom experience!

Amber Vaccianna

Hope Education writer

Advice & Inspiration | Primary

9 october 2020.

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Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

The world of creative writing is as vast as it is rewarding. It’s a form of expression that allows the writer to explore different worlds, characters, and narratives – all within the power of their pen.

But what exactly is creative writing and why is it important? Let’s explore the value of creative writing and how to inspire young (or old!) minds to embark on the curious and exciting journey of writing creatively – it’s easier than you think!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing, in its simplest form, is writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature.

It’s characterized by its emphasis on:

• narrative craft
• character development
• the use of literary devices

From poetry to plays, scripts to sonnets, creative writing covers a wide range of genres . It’s about painting pictures with words, invoking emotions, and bringing ideas to life . It’s about crafting stories that are compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Whether you’re penning a novel or jotting down a journal entry, creative writing encourages you to unleash your imagination and express your thoughts in a unique, artistic way. For a deeper dive into the realm of creative writing, you can visit our article on what is creative writing .

Benefits of Developing Creative Writing Skills

The benefits of creative writing extend beyond the page.

It’s not just about creating captivating stories or crafting beautiful prose. The skills developed through creative writing are invaluable in many aspects of life and work.

1. Creative writing fosters creativity and imagination. 

It encourages you to think outside the box, broaden your perspective, and explore new ideas. It also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, as it involves conveying thoughts, emotions, and narratives in a clear and compelling manner.

2. Creative writing aids in improving critical thinking skills.

It prompts you to analyze characters, plotlines, and themes, and make connections between different ideas. This process activates different parts of the mind, drawing on personal experiences, the imagination, logical plot development, and emotional intelligence.

3. Creative writing is also a valuable tool for self-expression and personal growth.

It allows you to explore your feelings, experiences, and observations, providing an outlet for self-reflection and introspection. By both reading and writing about different characters in different situations, readers develop empathy in a gentle but effective way.

4. Creative writing skills can open up a host of career opportunities.

From authors and editors to content creators and copywriters, the demand for creative writers is vast and varied. You can learn more about potential career paths in our article on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

In essence, creative writing is more than just an art—it’s a skill, a craft, and a powerful tool for communication and self-expression. Whether you’re teaching creative writing or learning it, understanding its value is the first step towards mastering the art.

The 3 Roles of a Creative Writing Teacher

Amongst the many facets of a creative writing teacher’s role, three vital aspects stand out: inspiring creativity , nurturing talent , and providing constructive criticism . These elements play a significant role in shaping budding writers and fostering their passion for the craft.

1. Inspiring Creativity

The primary function of a creative writing teacher is to inspire creativity.

They must foster an environment that encourages students to think outside the box and explore new possibilities . This includes presenting students with creative writing prompts that challenge their thinking, promoting lively discussions around various topics, and providing opportunities for students to engage in creative writing activities for kids .

Teachers should also expose students to a range of literary genres , styles, and techniques to broaden their understanding and appreciation of the craft. This exposure not only enhances their knowledge but also stimulates their creativity, encouraging them to experiment with different writing styles .

2. Nurturing Talent

Nurturing talent involves recognizing the unique abilities of each student and providing the necessary support and guidance to help them develop these skills. A creative writing teacher needs to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student and tailor their approach accordingly.

This means:

• offering personalized feedback
• setting realistic yet challenging goals
• providing opportunities for students to showcase their work

Encouraging students to participate in writing competitions or to publish their work can give them a confidence boost and motivate them to improve. Furthermore, teachers should educate students about various creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree . This knowledge can inspire students to pursue their passion for writing and explore career opportunities in the field.

3. Providing Constructive Criticism

Providing constructive criticism is a critical aspect of teaching creative writing. It involves assessing students’ work objectively and providing feedback that helps them improve .

Teachers should:

• highlight the strengths of the work
• address the areas that need improvement
• suggest ways to make the piece better

Constructive criticism should be specific, actionable, and encouraging . It’s important to remember that the goal is to help the student improve, not to discourage them. Therefore, teachers need to communicate their feedback in a respectful and supportive manner.

In essence, a teacher’s role in teaching creative writing extends beyond mere instruction. They are mentors who inspire, nurture, and shape the minds of budding writers. By fostering a supportive and stimulating environment, they can help students unlock their creative potential and develop a lifelong love for writing.

3 Techniques for Teaching Creative Writing

When it comes to understanding how to teach creative writing, there are several effective techniques that can help inspire students and foster their writing skills.

1. Encouraging Free Writing Exercises

Free writing is a technique that encourages students to write continuously for a set amount of time without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or topic. This type of exercise can help unleash creativity, as it allows students to freely express their thoughts and ideas without judgment or constraint.

As a teacher, you can set a specific theme or provide creative writing prompts to guide the writing session. Alternatively, you can allow students to write about any topic that comes to mind. The key is to create an environment that encourages creative exploration and expression.

2. Exploring Different Genres

Another effective technique is to expose students to a wide range of writing genres. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, fantasy, mystery, and more. By exploring different genres, students can discover their unique writing styles and interests. This variety also offers the chance to expand their writing skills and apply them to various writing formats.

To facilitate this exploration, you can assign writing projects in different genres, conduct genre-specific writing workshops, or invite guest speakers who specialize in different genres. You can also encourage students to critically analyze how different authors approach their work.

3. Analyzing Published Works

Analyzing published works is a powerful way to teach creative writing. This technique allows students to learn from established authors by studying their:

• writing styles
• narrative structures
• use of language.

It also provides a practical context for understanding writing concepts and techniques.

As a teacher, you can select diverse pieces of literature for analysis , ranging from classic novels to contemporary short stories. Encourage students to identify elements they admire in these works and discuss how they can incorporate similar techniques into their own writing.

These techniques for teaching creative writing are effective ways to inspire creativity, encourage self-expression, and develop writing skills. As a teacher, your role is crucial in guiding students through their creative journey and helping them realize their potential as writers.

Creative Writing Workshops and Exercises

One effective method on how to teach creative writing is through the use of targeted workshops and exercises. These interactive sessions can stimulate creativity, foster character development , and help in understanding story structures .

Idea Generation Workshops

Idea generation is a crucial aspect of creative writing. It is the starting point that provides a springboard for writers to explore and develop their narratives. Idea generation workshops can be an interactive and fun way to help writers come up with fresh ideas.

Workshops can include brainstorming sessions , where writers are encouraged to think freely and note down all ideas, no matter how unconventional they may seem. Another method is the use of writing prompts , which can serve as a creative spark.

A prompt could be:

• even an image

Editor’s Note : Encourage children to create a big scribble on a scrap piece of paper and then look for an image in it (like looking for pictures in the clouds). This can be a great creative writing prompt and students will love sharing their writing with each other! Expect lots of giggles and fun!

Character Development Exercises

Characters are the heart of any story. They drive the narrative and engage the readers. Character development exercises can help writers create well-rounded and relatable characters.

Such exercises can include character questionnaires , where writers answer a series of questions about their characters to gain a deeper understanding of their personalities, backgrounds, and motivations. Role-playing activities can also be useful, allowing writers to step into their characters’ shoes and explore their reactions in different scenarios.

Story Structure Workshops

Understanding story structure is vital for creating a compelling narrative. Story structure workshops can guide writers on how to effectively structure their stories to engage readers from start to finish .

These workshops can cover essential elements of story structures like:

• rising action
• falling action

In addition to understanding the basics, writers should be encouraged to experiment with different story structures to find what works best for their narrative style. An understanding of story structure can also help in analyzing and learning from published works .

Providing writers with the right tools and techniques, through workshops and exercises, can significantly improve their creative writing skills. It’s important to remember that creativity flourishes with practice and patience .

As a teacher, nurturing this process is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching creative writing. For more insights and tips on teaching creative writing, continue exploring our articles on creative writing .

Tips to Enhance Creative Writing Skills

The process of teaching creative writing is as much about honing one’s own skills as it is about imparting knowledge to others. Here are some key strategies that can help in enhancing your creative writing abilities and make your teaching methods more effective.

Regular Practice

Like any other skill, creative writing requires regular practice . Foster the habit of writing daily, even if it’s just a few lines. This will help you stay in touch with your creative side and continually improve your writing skills. Encourage your students to do the same.

Introduce them to various creative writing prompts to stimulate their imagination and make their writing practice more engaging.

Reading Widely

Reading is an essential part of becoming a better writer. By reading widely, you expose yourself to a variety of styles, tones, and genres . This not only broadens your literary horizons but also provides a wealth of ideas for your own writing.

Encourage your students to read extensively as well. Analyzing and discussing different works can be an excellent learning exercise and can spark creative ideas .

Exploring Various Writing Styles

The beauty of creative writing lies in its diversity. From poetic verses to gripping narratives, there’s a wide range of styles to explore. Encourage your students to try their hand at different forms of writing. This not only enhances their versatility but also helps them discover their unique voice as a writer.

To help them get started, you can introduce a variety of creative writing activities for kids . These tasks can be tailored to suit different age groups and proficiency levels. Remember, the goal is to foster a love for writing, so keep the activities fun and engaging .

Have Fun Teaching Creative Writing!

Enhancing creative writing skills is a continuous journey. It requires persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. As a teacher, your role is to guide your students on this journey, providing them with the tools and encouragement they need to flourish as writers – and most of all – enjoy the process!

For more insights on creative writing, be sure to explore our articles on what is creative writing and creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

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Teaching writing at the second grade level is a task that requires patience and appropriate strategies. While it might seem easy to write at a second grade level, students are still learning the basic skills required to form words, sentences and paragraphs. Below are a few tricks teachers can use to help these students learn to write.

Review the basics

Early in the year, teachers should review the lessons learned in first grade and provide lessons in pre-writing skills. Those skills are the key to developing paragraphs, essays and stories. Second grade students then should be ready to start exploring the differences in writing styles and developing an awareness of their audience.

Start at the beginning

Southwood Elementary School teacher Mrs. Pennino requires her students to learn beginning hooks to get started in writing. By starting from the hook and working on developing the story or essay from that point, students are learning the basics of outlining and developing ideas.

The hook is the beginning and teachers need to explore that point before moving into developing a paragraph from that first sentence. It helps develop an awareness of the audience and teaches students that they should always start at the beginning and work out from the points they hope to make.

Have students write in a journal

Student journals are an effective teaching tool that allows students to practice the writing skills as they learn. A dialogue journal helps students learn to put their thoughts into sentences and writing. Although teachers cannot write a dialogue journal with every student each day, having students spend a short time writing in a journal about different topics will help develop the same skills.

A daily journal allows teachers to evaluate student growth and performance. It also allows teachers to catch weaknesses early and work on a plan to improve the writing skills before students become confused.

Use worksheets in the classroom

In early education, worksheets are a powerful learning tool that teachers can use to help students learn new ideas, lessons and information.

Worksheets are also useful for the practice students obtain while working on questions or problems. The questions on the worksheets help students develop a complete understanding of conjunctions, verbs, nouns, transition words and similar skills that are required for effective writing.

Worksheets can help students learn different skills based on their grade level, writing abilities and the lessons that teachers are providing. They offer students a chance to work through ideas before they apply those ideas in writing assignments.

Although teachers have a wide range of activities, tools and options available, it is the practice and style of teaching that helps improve student performance. By providing a wide range of opportunities to practice, teachers are allowing students to develop effective writing skills.

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5 mini-lessons to teach procedural writing.

Teaching procedural writing is such a fun writing genre to teach.  Kids come in contact with procedural texts all the time, they just may not know it! Their homework directions, a recipe, directions for their favorite games, a to-do list from mom…our students are already immersed in procedural writing on a daily basis. And when they begin their own procedural writing, kids are always excited to share their expertise. They gain confidence in themselves as writers when they can choose a topic and write about something that they are good at.  With purposeful mini-lessons , meaningful anchor charts, and mentor text used to model the author's craft, you will be prepared to help your students plan and create an amazing work of procedural writing on their own.

Carefully developing mini-lessons that will help students as they write on their own is an important part of planning your procedural writing unit.  Here are a few ideas as you are planning to teach procedural writing.

1. What is Procedural Writing?

Procedural writing teaches someone how to do something, make something, or be something.  Students have the chance to teach their readers something that they know and know well. They love having the chance to be “the expert.”

Students can create their own chart and consider things that they would like to teach in their procedural writing.  They can create a list of things they can teach readers to do, make, or be.  From this list, they can choose one thing that they would like to be the topic of their writing.

2. Selecting a topic and gathering information

Procedural writing allows students to become an expert on a topic.  They are able to take a topic and teach others about it.  But, sometimes when they are an expert, they may forget small steps that seem simple. While they are so familiar with the topic, the step may seem like it is just common sense.  As the writer, they must plan carefully for procedural writing so that all of the materials and steps are clear for the reader.

Create an anchor chart together:

Procedural Writing Steps

• Choose a topic-what am I an expert at?
• What will I need?-list the materials needed
• Plan the steps-be specific!
• Use transition words to show the order of the steps.
• Draw illustrations to match your steps.

Carefully planning each step of the procedural writing process will help as students begin their writing.  Incorporating all of these elements in a clear and concise way will keep the reader informed and interested in the writing.

3. Determining the Format

Procedural writing can be written in different formats and as the writer, students must decide which works best for their topic. Share examples of writing written in list form, numbered steps, bullets, or paragraphs.  A few of my favorite books to share are “ How to Babysit a Grandpa ” and “ How to Teach a Slug to Read .”  The steps are numbered in “ How to Teach a Slug to Read ” and in “ How to Babysit a Grandpa ” the steps are broken into small lists with bullets.  Each one is very specific in the steps given, but they are written in different formats. 

Using sticky notes, students can begin to draft their procedural writing.  Encourage students to be specific with their steps.  Remember, they are the expert and know all about the topic, but the reader does not!  Students can work to carefully write their steps in a format where each step is clear and specific.  Sticky notes can be helpful because they can see each step and move them around to create an order that makes sense.

4. Using Specific Vocabulary

When writing a procedural text, students must choose specific words and phrases that relate only to their topic.  Procedural writing may introduce new vocabulary to the reader that they did not know before!  Students are teaching the reader, so they must use the knowledge that they have, which includes vocabulary that is specific to the topic.

Procedural writing also uses pronouns “you” and “your.”  The writer is speaking directly to the reader and laying out the steps for them.  Help students address their readers by using the pronouns “you and your.”

Create an anchor chart:

• Give each student a sticky note and ask them to write down a word that is specific to their topic.  This does not need to be a big, fancy word.  How to ride a bike might include a word like handlebars or spokes.  How to be a good friend may include a word like compassionate.  

This is an opportunity for students to see that using specific vocabulary does not need to be difficult; when they’re the expert, it is using the words that they know!  Students can add their sticky notes to the anchor chart to create a fun anchor chart full of specific vocabulary.  Depending on the time that you have for your mini-lesson, students can add more than one word or even add vocab from the mentor text you’ve chosen.

Students can make a list of words that is specific to their topic.  Once students have created a list, they can continue to work on drafting their writing.

5. Writing in Present Tense

When students write procedural text, they should write in the present tense.  Procedural writing is written as if it is happening RIGHT NOW!

• Present tense verbs show that the action is happening right now.
• Add -s or –es to verbs (cuts, runs, cooks)
• Present progressive uses “am, is, are” plus adds –ing to a verb (is cutting, am running, are cooking)

Having your students share and present their procedural writing is such a great way to get them excited and focused on their writing.

I hope you found some great ways to help your students through the procedural writing process.

Find the resources features in this post:

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Happy writing!

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How-To Writing for 2nd Graders

April 29, 2015

If your second grade students are working on how-to writing or procedural writing, you may be looking for a few tools to get started. Here are some resources to help.

It’s Wednesday, so I’m back with another writing post. Today’s focus is on How-To Writing (some of you might call it Procedural Writing). Because each class of students is different, the length of time I spend on this writing unit varies greatly from year to year. About two years ago, I was able to spend 8 weeks on this unit.  Last year, we only spent 3 weeks on it.

How-To Writing Mentor Texts

For this unit, I start by reading aloud books that model different characteristics of how-to writing.  I do not read every single book below, but these are all great choices:

• How To Feed Your Parents
• How to Read to a Grandma and Grandpa
• How I Trained My Dog in 10 Days
• If Your Monster Won’t Go to Bed
• How to Code a Sandcastle
• How to Catch a Monster
• Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle
• How to Read a Story
• How to Draw 101 Animals
• Caring for Your Lion
• How to Build a Fizzy Rocket
• How to Apologize

Click on the picture below to find even more how-to or procedural writing books on Amazon .

we are a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to amazon.com and affiliated sites.

If you don’t have any money left in your teaching budget, look into what is already included in your curriculum. Our school is fortunate to have a Reading A-Z subscription and there are several choices at different levels. Our curriculum also has a few choices that aren’t my favorites, but they will do in a pinch (or to leave for a guest teacher).  In either case, the following titles are leveled texts available to me which makes them ideal for small groups:

Getting Started with How-To Writing

As I’m reading, I start pointing out and introducing the different text featuresI want my students to use in their own writing. We begin to create an anchor chart as a class. This turns into a writing checklist of things I want my students to include in their writing. Here’s one that we developed two years ago (that I have since cleaned up just for you). My students put these in their writing folders:

Now that we have all of the pieces, we’re ready to jump in and begin writing. When we started it was winter, so I picked a high interest topic for modeling purposes (How to Build a Snowman). There are so many options for prewrites.  For this prompt I created a bubble map for the materials we would need. Then I made a 4-box plan with the most basic transition words. I drew pictures and added key words and details to write about later.

We always use a bubble map for the materials or ingredients we need.  Then when it’s time to do a prewrite, they often choose one of the following to draw and write out the steps:

One of my favorite resources for How-To is made by the talented Tangled Up in Teaching .  It is filled with graphic organizers, writing papers, and THE BEST craftivities.  Obviously we don’t use every single one.  In fact, we only use a few and only at the beginning when we are doing shared how-to writing.  However, it remains one of my favorite TpT purchases of all time!

Seriously, you cannot even begin to imagine how excited students get when they have a fun project at the end.  Here are two of the craftivities we have used in the past:

Since I do a lot of modeling during writing instruction, students can easily fall into patterns and more formulaic writing.  I use writing minilessons along the way to help them improve their word choice. Two places to do this are with transitions and action words. These become anchor charts on the walls and then I make printable resources for their writing folders. This is what we came up with last year:

In order to increase their independence, we brainstorm a list of topics that my students are “experts” in. I use the term “experts” very loosely! After all, these kiddos are second graders, but the word “expert” empowers them! Here is a list of topics my class came up with a few years ago (typed up just for you):

I hope you were able to gather some new ideas to jump into how-to writing. Are you ready for some freebies?

I hope this has given you a new idea or two for how-to writing! You might also enjoy:

• Opinion Writing
• Friendly Letter Writing
• Daily 5 Writing
• Picture Books about Writing
• Ways to Increase Writing Engagement

Happy Teaching!

Related posts:

April 30, 2015 at 8:29 am

Great list of topics…find myself getting in a rut and choosing the same ones all the time. Thanks for sharing!

January 5, 2023 at 10:26 am

I cannot get this to print says google error

January 5, 2023 at 2:53 pm

Hi Angela, I just double checked the file and did not have any trouble printing. Are you trying to print from your internet browser? If so, you can either try a different browser or download the resource to your computer and open the file from your downloads folder. I hope this helps! Storie

August 22, 2023 at 6:33 pm

This is an awesome resource for teachers teaching lower grades for the first time! This saved me a ton of time which I would have to spend sitting and typing out/ making anchor charts. I cannot thank you enough for this resource! Thanks!

August 23, 2023 at 3:01 pm

Hi Chandra, I’m so glad you found these resources to be helpful. Enjoy! Storie

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How to Teach Writing - Resources for Creative Writing Teachers

Fiction writing course syllabus with lesson plans, fiction writing exercises and worksheets, resources for teaching introductory poetry writing, resources for teaching children.

How to teach writing - general thoughts

• help students to understand the elements of craft (e.g., story structure, poetic meter, etc.) so that they can recognize them in their reading and consciously experiment with them in their writing.
• open students' eyes to the options available to them when they write a story or poem (e.g., "showing" instead of "telling", using different kinds of narrators and narrative viewpoints, using different poetic forms).
• encourage students to become close observers of the world around them and to find creative material in their environments.
• teach students the value of specificity, of using all five senses to discover details that may not be obvious to the casual observer.
• help students to separate the processes of writing and editing, to avoid self-criticism while writing their rough drafts to allow ideas to flow freely (for this to work, their teachers also have to avoid criticizing rough drafts!). Teach students to treat self-editing as a separate stage in the writing process.
• get students reading in the genre they'll be writing; e.g., if they're writing poetry, encourage them to read a lot of poems.
• help students learn to trust their own perspectives and observations, to believe that they have something interesting to say.
• teach students not to wait for inspiration, that they can write even when not inspired.
• get students excited about writing!

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65+ Ideas, Tricks, and Tips for Teaching 2nd Grade

Second grade is first in our hearts.

Second graders are enthusiastic, curious little balls of energy. They have mastered the basics, and their quest for more knowledge is infectious. Whether you are new to teaching second grade or have been in the classroom for years, it is important to have the resources you need to stay organized, while enhancing the learning environment for your active little learners. We have collected the best tips for teaching second grade from real teachers via our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE Facebook group and beyond to help you make this school year the best one yet!

Getting Your Classroom Ready

1. create an inviting classroom.

Need ideas to take your classroom to the next level? We’ve gathered real-life second grade classrooms for you to browse!

2. Gather all the supplies

Not sure what supplies you need for your second grade classroom? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with this list of essential second grade classroom supplies .

3. Pick an inspiring theme for your classroom

Image source: Schoolgirl Style

Classroom themes our second grade teachers love include: butterflies, black paper with polka dots, chevron, sock monkeys, owls, orange and teal, minions, and superheroes.

4. Find teacher deals on the cheap

Stores with serious discounts on classroom items recommended by our Facebook followers include Target, dollar stores, Mardel, Walmart, local teacher supply stores, Staples, Michaels, Jo-Ann, Oriental Trading, Amazon, NAEIR.org, NationalSchoolProducts.com, and TeachersPayTeachers.com.

Here are some other tips from second grade teachers on finding deals:

• “Office Depot will match prices plus give an additional discount.” —Kitty R.
• “Don’t be afraid of seeking donations. I once got a case of copy paper donated by a grocery store.” —Carmen B.
• “Yard sales are a great place for prize-box toys and for games for your rainy day closet.” —Sandie N.

Plus, be sure to check out our BIG List of Dollar Store Hacks for Teachers .

5. Try different classroom layouts

Long gone are the days of straight rows of desks lining the classroom. Throw out your seating chart and try one of these ideas instead .

6. Put together an irresistible classroom reading nook

Your second graders are well on their way to becoming readers, so make this time extra special for them by setting up one of these awesome reading nooks .

7. Fill your classroom library with these classic second grade books

Teaching second grade involves a lot of reading! Here are 60 of our favorite books.

8. Get a jump start on lessons

Teacher planning and prep time are precious! It makes life a lot easier when you can purchase existing lessons, bundles, books, and pages. And why not support other teachers while you do it! Check out our favorite Teacher Pay Teachers sellers for teaching second grade.

9. Set up and share an Amazon Classroom Wish List

Teachers spend an insane amount of money out of pocket each year buying classroom supplies. Spend less of your own money to enhance your classroom and curriculum with the Amazon Classroom Wish List feature . This is an amazing and easy way for parents and other members of the community to help you out. Other websites offering wish lists and registries include Target , Oriental Trading , and GiftYou .

10. Stock up on educational toys and games

Second graders absolutely love hands-on activities, especially when they can do them with their classmates. There are plenty of ways to incorporate educational toys into the curriculum to liven things up, while still sticking to those standards. These games are perfect for centers, indoor recess, and free-time choice activities.

The First Days of School

11. revisit the first days of school: how to be an effective teacher.

I always refer back to some pages and checklists in Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong’s indispensable book The First Days of School: How To Be an Effective Teacher at the beginning of each school year. There is a reason it is still a bestseller and is in its fifth edition. You probably still have a copy from your teacher training courses.  But if not, grab the latest edition on Amazon . The ideas, tricks, and tips are perfect for teaching second grade, and all grades in general.

12. Introduce yourself creatively

Make day one memorable by introducing yourself in a creative way, such as sending postcards over the summer. Here are 36 creative ideas .

13. Get to know each other with icebreakers

Get the kids mixing and moving as they get to know one another. Here are lots of great icebreaker ideas , including a link to fun Would You Rather …? scenarios.

Create a Classroom Community

14. draft a class constitution.

Image source: Kreative in Life

After learning about the Constitution, students can apply their knowledge by creating their own class constitution called “We the Kids”!

15. Establish a culture of kindness

Print these free downloadable posters to remind your students that kindness matters most of all.

16. Build your students’ social-emotional skills

Teaching second grade means building SEL skills. Use these read-alouds to talk about everything from kindness to courage to trying your best.

17. Use transition times for mental health check-ins

Incorporate quick mental and emotional health check-ins with students as a regular part of your classroom routine. Use transition time wisely with these short, mindful activities .

18. What does a “model citizen” look like?

Image source: K–2 Is Splendid

After discussing what makes a good citizen, construct a “model citizen” on poster paper for your classroom. Students can write their ideas about the great qualities a model citizen should have and stick them on the poster to complete the picture.

19. Incorporate Kagan strategies for community building

Kagan is a scientific research-based program focused on student engagement. Kagan strategies help educators build a caring and kind environment to help all types of learners thrive.

20. Encourage good behavior—without giving out treats

Set your expectations very clearly from the start. Start off by reading about classroom management , dive into our second grade classroom management tips , and then check out these fun ideas for keeping your students on track without breaking the bank.

Ideas for Language Arts

21. incorporate daily writing prompts.

We’ve gathered 25 writing prompts that you can download and use to have your second graders practice their writing skills.

22. Use anchor charts to teach reading comprehension

Check out 49 of our favorites  for teaching second grade here.

23.  Use digital research tools to write reports

Research skills are super important, but they can be quite a challenge to teach to second graders. PebbleGo is a research tool specifically designed for K-3 students, and it covers topics in science, social studies, and more. Check out how I made these animal reports happen using age-appropriate research tools with my students.

24. Then show off that research using digital workspaces

Go a step further from written reports by using digital workspaces in your classroom. PebbleGo Create is a kid-friendly program that kids love. If you don’t have a subscription, any digital slide-presentation program will do just fine. See how I used PebbleGo Create with my second graders to make visual interpretations of our animal reports.

25. Incorporate fun reading comprehension activities

Second graders are some of the most enthusiastic readers out there. They are transitioning from the basics into readers looking for meaning. As they build upon their comprehension skills, they are beginning to make connections to themselves and the world at large. These 26 second grade reading comprehension activities will help your students dig deeper into texts on their own as well as with their peers.

26. Introduce chapter books to your students

Help your second graders transition from picture books and easy readers to chapter books. Start by reading aloud a chapter book from a popular series like The Magic Tree House . Your more advanced readers will be able to read these on their own at the beginning of the year, while some will transition midyear. Once second graders gain the confidence to move to the other side, there is no turning back!

27. Get those graphic novels out

Like it or not, graphic novels are here to stay. So get onboard if you haven’t already! Second graders of all reading levels absolutely love them. Lower-level readers gain confidence since they are a step up from picture books, while higher-level readers enjoy having pictures to go along with “bigger kid” books. If you already are stocked up on the popular Dog Man series, here are 16 similar graphic novel series ideas for your stash.

28. Fire up your little storytellers’ imaginations

Image source: Education.com Strips

Create a story jar and let second graders’ imaginations roam.

29. Introduce your second graders to small-moment narratives

Image source: Buggy for Second Grade

Break down the process with this handy anchor chart and then watch them go to town writing.

30. Teach annotation with “thinkmarks”

Image source: Monica Jasso/Pinterest

Encourage students to actively engage as readers by printing or having students create “thinkmarks” they can use to annotate text as they read.

31. Make alphabet picture books

Different editions could include parts of speech, antonyms, synonyms, and homophones, etc.  Create a class library of these! It’s a great way to showcase student learning.

32. Have fun with literacy centers

We love this big list of ideas for grades K-2.

33. Make phonics fun

Phonics is the foundation for reading success. Breaking words into their constituent sounds helps kids understand and build their literacy skills, bit by bit. Check out these 26 phonics activities for teaching second grade.

Ideas for Math

34. teach time creatively.

Image source: Elementary Nest

Students can draw different times on a dry-erase clock—just a Hula-Hoop taped on your whiteboard. Or try one of these other 23 methods for teaching how to tell time .

35. Solve a word problem of the day

Opening your daily math lesson with a math word problem of the day is an excellent way to set the stage for learning. Word problems are difficult for young learners to grasp, even when the mathematical operation portion of the problem is basic. Incorporate these second grade math word problems one day at a time at the start of your math block to build confidence, critical-thinking skills, and a learning community.

36. Build a number of the day

Image source: Turnstall’s Teaching Tidbits

Students can build the number of the day by selecting the correct numerals, words, and units.

37. Play math games

Here’s a big list of math games that are just right for second grade.

38. Watch math videos

Making math more engaging for kids can be difficult. But teaching math will be anything but boring when you introduce students to some of our favorite subtraction and addition videos on YouTube .

39. Teach shapes

Learning shapes is one of the earliest concepts we teach kids. Shapes ready them for geometry in the years ahead, but it’s also an important skill for learning how to write and draw. Get started with these shape activities .

40. Read books about math

Young mathematicians can have a hard time understanding abstract math concepts. Enhancing your lessons with books about math will help your students make connections while having fun in the process. Motivate your students while introducing new concepts, reinforcing ideas, and talking about all things math!

41. Let your students lead

Second grade teacher Stacey S. shares, “I give my kiddos about 10 minutes to complete morning math problems. Then I choose a student to come up to ‘teach’ the first problem by sharing strategies and solutions. That student asks if everyone agrees or disagrees and chooses another student for the next problem, if everyone agrees. If there is disagreement with his answer, they discuss alternatives. The students are in charge for the first 30–45 minutes of the day! My favorite time of the day!”

42. Write in math journals every day

Image source: Smiling & Shining in Second Grade

With math journals, students learn to solve mathematical problems using pictures and words. Check out free entry examples on the blog, which focuses on teaching second grade.

43. Use hands-on activities and manipulatives

Help students learn those tricky math concepts by incorporating hands-on activities and manipulatives whenever possible. Start by trying these ideas for teaching graphing , place value , and solving word problems . There are plenty of other great ideas for teaching second grade on our website, including fun holiday-themed activities!

Ideas for Science

44. get hands-on with science.

Science is the perfect subject for kids to get down and dirty. Try these 50 second grade science projects for inspiration.

45. Try daily STEM challenges

These STEM challenges are designed with your second graders in mind. Try one each day or each week to get them thinking outside the box.

46. Teach the plant life cycle

Plant life cycle is always a fun science unit. You get to talk about growing, planting, and nature. Plus, students love digging in and getting their hands dirty when they plant a seed themselves. Try these plant life cycle activities .

47. Teach states of matter with this simple demonstration

Image source: Education.com

Conduct this hands-on experiment to help students recognize and understand the different states of matter.

48. Conduct gummy bear experiments

In the category of snackable tips for teaching second grade … watch what happens when you soak gummy bears in liquid over a period of days. Find the full experiment—complete with freebie handout—on The Second Grade Shuffle blog .

49. Take a virtual field trip

Advances in technology have paved the way for virtual field trips, which have proven themselves to be a game-changer. They are a great way to expose students to faraway places and even places in their own backyard. Check out this list of 40 amazing virtual field trips to get started. No permission slips needed!

Ideas for Social Studies

50. teach an early lesson on economics.

Second grade teacher Jacqueline Q. recommends, ”Set up a classroom economy! I give my students plastic ‘banks’ from the dollar store. They earn money for specific things throughout the day: one penny for copying down homework, 10 cents here and there. Just keep it consistent and don’t overuse it. Otherwise, they’ll be ungrateful for those random dimes and want quarters instead. On Fridays, they get to go shopping!”

“ My Classroom Economy is a great resource for help getting started,” adds Renee J.

51. Introduce your second graders to American symbols

This awesome mini-book  is FREE!

52. Learn about heroes

Read biographies about famous people in history. Match books to holidays or other commemorations, like Presidents’ Day or Black History Month.

53. Celebrate holidays and other special days

Second graders love any reason to celebrate. Who doesn’t? This calendar of holidays and special days will give you a variety of monthly celebrations. You will also find links to activities, lesson plans, resources, books, and more for each event listed. You can even download this year’s updated calendar to keep on hand.

Ideas for Classroom Organization

54. buy a new teacher planner.

We rounded up the planners teachers recommend most to one another on the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE Facebook Group . Take a look and find your own new favorite!

55. Rock that new teacher planner

Read these tips  for keeping your day, week, and year beautifully organized.

56. Manage work submissions with clothespins

Image source: 2nd Grade Stuff

Having students clip their papers will help quickly distinguish who handed in homework and who hasn’t.

57. Use an uncommon organizing method for the Common Core

Create separately labeled folders for each standard, then file activities that align with each standard in the appropriate folders. Genius!

Image source: Teaching in Oz

58. Avoid nameless homework

Image source: Spectacular 2nd Grade

When students highlight their names before handing in work, you’ll never receive a name-free paper again!

59. Make informal assessments easy with these exit slips

Image source: First Grade Nest

Create a “Show What You Know” board. Use speech-bubble-shaped whiteboards for kids to write their lesson takeaways on, or have them write on sticky notes and stick them on their designated bubbles. As a follow-up class activity, students can look at everything their classmates learned!

60. Use a teacher cart

This handy teacher cart has so many uses . From the start, it gives you extra storage space. Use it to organize classroom supplies, centers, or just about anything you can think of. It even has wheels, so you can keep it in place to help organize your classroom, bring materials with you around the room, or take it on the go if you travel around campus. A win-win for everyone!

Ideas for Classroom Management

61. have a procedure for everything.

“It’s really important, in second grade, that you have procedures for everything! My first year, I had procedures for the big things but not the smaller things, and that was a mistake. Tattling and drama were big in my class. Not starting off with a policy and procedure for addressing it took from instructional time initially.” —Donella H.

62. Post your students’ morning routine

Having a routine posted that is illustrated and easy to see will help your second graders remember how to start each day independently.

63. Set up cues to keep class noise down to a low roar

Image source: First Grade & Flip Flops

Use a chart like this to help students understand when to use different voice levels. Use cues like “spy talk” to signal when voices are getting too loud. Make a class goal of going from a five to a three. For more great ideas, see 24 Attention-Getters for the Classroom .

64. Get the wiggles out

Even grown-ups can’t sit still and listen all day! Get your kids up and moving with awesome second grade brain breaks .

65. Use music in your classroom

There are many creative ways to use music when teaching second grade. Music is a great way to mark transitions, teach multiplication facts, or set the tone for quiet reading time. Check out these kid-friendly Pandora stations. There are also plenty of instrumental channels and kid-friendly channels on SiriusXM radio, along with similar streamable playlists on services like Apple Music and Spotify . The Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star series has a number of great lullaby versions of some of the greatest rock bands on the planet, providing perfect background music during independent work. Have some fun and play some of your favorite artists too!

Other Ideas

66. build positive relationships with parents.

Here are 10 tips for making working with parents the easiest part of your job.

67. Have students write this fun Who Am I? paragraph for Back-to-School Night

Image source: Smiling in Second Grade

Students can describe and draw themselves. Then parents can guess which child is theirs during Back-to-School Night festivities. Lifting the drawing will reveal a picture of the student holding their name.

What are your top tips for teaching second grade? Come share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook. WeAreTeachers HELPLINE is a place for teachers to ask and respond to questions on classroom challenges, collaboration, and advice.

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

July 29, 2018

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“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”  This proverb, attributed to the Hopi Indians, is one I wish I’d known a long time ago, because I would have used it when teaching my students the craft of storytelling. With a well-told story we can help a person see things in an entirely new way. We can forge new relationships and strengthen the ones we already have. We can change a law, inspire a movement, make people care fiercely about things they’d never given a passing thought.

But when we study storytelling with our students, we forget all that. Or at least I did. When my students asked why we read novels and stories, and why we wrote personal narratives and fiction, my defense was pretty lame: I probably said something about the importance of having a shared body of knowledge, or about the enjoyment of losing yourself in a book, or about the benefits of having writing skills in general.

I forgot to talk about the  power of story. I didn’t bother to tell them that the ability to tell a captivating story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. It’s how we connect to each other. It’s something to celebrate, to study, to perfect. If we’re going to talk about how to teach students to write stories, we should start by thinking about why we tell stories at all . If we can pass that on to our students, then we will be going beyond a school assignment; we will be doing something transcendent.

Now. How do we get them to write those stories? I’m going to share the process I used for teaching narrative writing. I used this process with middle school students, but it would work with most age groups.

A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?

When teaching narrative writing, many teachers separate personal narratives from short stories. In my own classroom, I tended to avoid having my students write short stories because personal narratives were more accessible. I could usually get students to write about something that really happened, while it was more challenging to get them to make something up from scratch.

In the “real” world of writers, though, the main thing that separates memoir from fiction is labeling: A writer might base a novel heavily on personal experiences, but write it all in third person and change the names of characters to protect the identities of people in real life. Another writer might create a short story in first person that reads like a personal narrative, but is entirely fictional. Just last weekend my husband and I watched the movie Lion and were glued to the screen the whole time, knowing it was based on a true story. James Frey’s book  A Million Little Pieces  sold millions of copies as a memoir but was later found to contain more than a little bit of fiction. Then there are unique books like Curtis Sittenfeld’s brilliant novel American Wife , based heavily on the early life of Laura Bush but written in first person, with fictional names and settings, and labeled as a work of fiction. The line between fact and fiction has always been really, really blurry, but the common thread running through all of it is good storytelling.

With that in mind, the process for teaching narrative writing can be exactly the same for writing personal narratives or short stories; it’s the same skill set. So if you think your students can handle the freedom, you might decide to let them choose personal narrative or fiction for a narrative writing assignment, or simply tell them that whether the story is true doesn’t matter, as long as they are telling a good story and they are not trying to pass off a fictional story as fact.

Here are some examples of what that kind of flexibility could allow:

• A student might tell a true story from their own experience, but write it as if it were a fiction piece, with fictional characters, in third person.
• A student might create a completely fictional story, but tell it in first person, which would give it the same feel as a personal narrative.
• A student might tell a true story that happened to someone else, but write it in first person, as if they were that person. For example, I could write about my grandmother’s experience of getting lost as a child, but I might write it in her voice.

If we aren’t too restrictive about what we call these pieces, and we talk about different possibilities with our students, we can end up with lots of interesting outcomes. Meanwhile, we’re still teaching students the craft of narrative writing.

A Note About Process: Write With Your Students

One of the most powerful techniques I used as a writing teacher was to do my students’ writing assignments with them. I would start my own draft at the same time as they did, composing “live” on the classroom projector, and doing a lot of thinking out loud so they could see all the decisions a writer has to make.

The most helpful parts for them to observe were the early drafting stage, where I just scratched out whatever came to me in messy, run-on sentences, and the revision stage, where I crossed things out, rearranged, and made tons of notes on my writing. I have seen over and over again how witnessing that process can really help to unlock a student’s understanding of how writing actually gets made.

A Narrative Writing Unit Plan

Before I get into these steps, I should note that there is no one right way to teach narrative writing, and plenty of accomplished teachers are doing it differently and getting great results. This just happens to be a process that has worked for me.

Step 1: Show Students That Stories Are Everywhere

Getting our students to tell stories should be easy. They hear and tell stories all the time. But when they actually have to put words on paper, they forget their storytelling abilities: They can’t think of a topic. They omit relevant details, but go on and on about irrelevant ones. Their dialogue is bland. They can’t figure out how to start. They can’t figure out how to end.

So the first step in getting good narrative writing from students is to help them see that they are already telling stories every day . They gather at lockers to talk about that thing that happened over the weekend. They sit at lunch and describe an argument they had with a sibling. Without even thinking about it, they begin sentences with “This one time…” and launch into stories about their earlier childhood experiences. Students are natural storytellers; learning how to do it well on paper is simply a matter of studying good models, then imitating what those writers do.

So start off the unit by getting students to tell their stories. In journal quick-writes, think-pair-shares, or by playing a game like Concentric Circles , prompt them to tell some of their own brief stories: A time they were embarrassed. A time they lost something. A time they didn’t get to do something they really wanted to do. By telling their own short anecdotes, they will grow more comfortable and confident in their storytelling abilities. They will also be generating a list of topic ideas. And by listening to the stories of their classmates, they will be adding onto that list and remembering more of their own stories.

And remember to tell some of your own. Besides being a good way to bond with students, sharing  your stories will help them see more possibilities for the ones they can tell.

Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story

Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like.

Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below. Then, using a simple story (try a video like The Present or Room ), fill out the story arc with the components from that story. Once students have seen this story mapped out, have them try it with another one, like a story you’ve read in class, a whole novel, or another short video.

Step 3: Introduce the Assignment

Up to this point, students have been immersed in storytelling. Now give them specific instructions for what they are going to do. Share your assignment rubric so they understand the criteria that will be used to evaluate them; it should be ready and transparent right from the beginning of the unit. As always, I recommend using a single point rubric for this.

Step 4: Read Models

Once the parameters of the assignment have been explained, have students read at least one model story, a mentor text that exemplifies the qualities you’re looking for. This should be a story on a topic your students can kind of relate to, something they could see themselves writing. For my narrative writing unit (see the end of this post), I wrote a story called “Frog” about a 13-year-old girl who finally gets to stay home alone, then finds a frog in her house and gets completely freaked out, which basically ruins the fun she was planning for the night.

They will be reading this model as writers, looking at how the author shaped the text for a purpose, so that they can use those same strategies in their own writing. Have them look at your rubric and find places in the model that illustrate the qualities listed in the rubric. Then have them complete a story arc for the model so they can see the underlying structure.

Ideally, your students will have already read lots of different stories to look to as models. If that isn’t the case, this list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter would be a good place to browse for titles that might be right for your students. Keep in mind that we have not read most of these stories, so be sure to read them first before adopting them for classroom use.

Step 5: Story Mapping

At this point, students will need to decide what they are going to write about. If they are stuck for a topic, have them just pick something they can write about, even if it’s not the most captivating story in the world. A skilled writer could tell a great story about deciding what to have for lunch. If they are using the skills of narrative writing, the topic isn’t as important as the execution.

Have students complete a basic story arc for their chosen topic using a diagram like the one below. This will help them make sure that they actually have a story to tell, with an identifiable problem, a sequence of events that build to a climax, and some kind of resolution, where something is different by the end. Again, if you are writing with your students, this would be an important step to model for them with your own story-in-progress.

Step 6: Quick Drafts

Now, have students get their chosen story down on paper as quickly as possible: This could be basically a long paragraph that would read almost like a summary, but it would contain all the major parts of the story. Model this step with your own story, so they can see that you are not shooting for perfection in any way. What you want is a working draft, a starting point, something to build on for later, rather than a blank page (or screen) to stare at.

Step 7: Plan the Pacing

Now that the story has been born in raw form, students can begin to shape it. This would be a good time for a lesson on pacing, where students look at how writers expand some moments to create drama and shrink other moments so that the story doesn’t drag. Creating a diagram like the one below forces a writer to decide how much space to devote to all of the events in the story.

Step 8: Long Drafts

With a good plan in hand, students can now slow down and write a proper draft, expanding the sections of their story that they plan to really draw out and adding in more of the details that they left out in the quick draft.

Step 9: Workshop

Once students have a decent rough draft—something that has a basic beginning, middle, and end, with some discernible rising action, a climax of some kind, and a resolution, you’re ready to shift into full-on workshop mode. I would do this for at least a week: Start class with a short mini-lesson on some aspect of narrative writing craft, then give students the rest of the period to write, conference with you, and collaborate with their peers. During that time, they should focus some of their attention on applying the skill they learned in the mini-lesson to their drafts, so they will improve a little bit every day.

Topics for mini-lessons can include:

• How to weave exposition into your story so you don’t give readers an “information dump”
• How to carefully select dialogue to create good scenes, rather than quoting everything in a conversation
• How to punctuate and format dialogue so that it imitates the natural flow of a conversation
• How to describe things using sensory details and figurative language; also,  what  to describe…students too often give lots of irrelevant detail
• How to choose precise nouns and vivid verbs, use a variety of sentence lengths and structures, and add transitional words, phrases, and features to help the reader follow along
• How to start, end, and title a story

Step 10: Final Revisions and Edits

As the unit nears its end, students should be shifting away from revision , in which they alter the content of a piece, toward editing , where they make smaller changes to the mechanics of the writing. Make sure students understand the difference between the two: They should not be correcting each other’s spelling and punctuation in the early stages of this process, when the focus should be on shaping a better story.

One of the most effective strategies for revision and editing is to have students read their stories out loud. In the early stages, this will reveal places where information is missing or things get confusing. Later, more read-alouds will help them immediately find missing words, unintentional repetitions, and sentences that just “sound weird.” So get your students to read their work out loud frequently. It also helps to print stories on paper: For some reason, seeing the words in print helps us notice things we didn’t see on the screen.

To get the most from peer review, where students read and comment on each other’s work, more modeling from you is essential: Pull up a sample piece of writing and show students how to give specific feedback that helps, rather than simply writing “good detail” or “needs more detail,” the two comments I saw exchanged most often on students’ peer-reviewed papers.

Step 11: Final Copies and Publication

Once revision and peer review are done, students will hand in their final copies. If you don’t want to get stuck with 100-plus papers to grade, consider using Catlin Tucker’s station rotation model , which keeps all the grading in class. And when you do return stories with your own feedback, try using Kristy Louden’s delayed grade strategy , where students don’t see their final grade until they have read your written feedback.

Beyond the standard hand-in-for-a-grade, consider other ways to have students publish their stories. Here are some options:

• Stories could be published as individual pages on a collaborative website or blog.
• Students could create illustrated e-books out of their stories.
• Students could create a slideshow to accompany their stories and record them as digital storytelling videos. This could be done with a tool like Screencastify or Screencast-O-Matic .

So this is what worked for me. If you’ve struggled to get good stories from your students, try some or all of these techniques next time. I think you’ll find that all of your students have some pretty interesting stories to tell. Helping them tell their stories well is a gift that will serve them for many years after they leave your classroom. ♦

Want this unit ready-made?

If you’re a writing teacher in grades 7-12 and you’d like a classroom-ready unit like the one described above, including slideshow mini-lessons on 14 areas of narrative craft, a sample narrative piece, editable rubrics, and other supplemental materials to guide students through every stage of the process, take a look at my Narrative Writing unit . Just click on the image below and you’ll be taken to a page where you can read more and see a detailed preview of what’s included.

What to Read Next

Categories: Instruction , Podcast

Tags: English language arts , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , teaching strategies

52 Comments

Wow, this is a wonderful guide! If my English teachers had taught this way, I’m sure I would have enjoyed narrative writing instead of dreading it. I’ll be able to use many of these suggestions when writing my blog! BrP

Lst year I was so discouraged because the short stories looked like the quick drafts described in this article. I thought I had totally failed until I read this and realized I did not fai,l I just needed to complete the process. Thank you!

I feel like you jumped in my head and connected my thoughts. I appreciate the time you took to stop and look closely at form. I really believe that student-writers should see all dimensions of narrative writing and be able to live in whichever style and voice they want for their work.

Can’t thank you enough for this. So well curated that one can just follow it blindly and ace at teaching it. Thanks again!

Great post! I especially liked your comments about reminding kids about the power of storytelling. My favourite podcasts and posts from you are always about how to do things in the classroom and I appreciate the research you do.

On a side note, the ice breakers are really handy. My kids know each other really well (rural community), and can tune out pretty quickly if there is nothing new to learn about their peers, but they like the games (and can remember where we stopped last time weeks later). I’ve started changing them up with ‘life questions’, so the editable version is great!

I love writing with my students and loved this podcast! A fun extension to this narrative is to challenge students to write another story about the same event, but use the perspective of another “character” from the story. Books like Wonder (R.J. Palacio) and Wanderer (Sharon Creech) can model the concept for students.

Thank you for your great efforts to reveal the practical writing strategies in layered details. As English is not my first language, I need listen to your podcast and read the text repeatedly so to fully understand. It’s worthy of the time for some great post like yours. I love sharing so I send the link to my English practice group that it can benefit more. I hope I could be able to give you some feedback later on.

Thank you for helping me get to know better especially the techniques in writing narrative text. Im an English teacher for 5years but have little knowledge on writing. I hope you could feature techniques in writing news and fearute story. God bless and more power!

Thank you for this! I am very interested in teaching a unit on personal narrative and this was an extremely helpful breakdown. As a current student teacher I am still unsure how to approach breaking down the structures of different genres of writing in a way that is helpful for me students but not too restrictive. The story mapping tools you provided really allowed me to think about this in a new way. Writing is such a powerful way to experience the world and more than anything I want my students to realize its power. Stories are how we make sense of the world and as an English teacher I feel obligated to give my students access to this particular skill.

The power of story is unfathomable. There’s this NGO in India doing some great work in harnessing the power of storytelling and plots to brighten children’s lives and enlighten them with true knowledge. Check out Katha India here: http://bit.ly/KathaIndia

Thank you so much for this. I did not go to college to become a writing professor, but due to restructuring in my department, I indeed am! This is a wonderful guide that I will use when teaching the narrative essay. I wonder if you have a similar guide for other modes such as descriptive, process, argument, etc.?

Hey Melanie, Jenn does have another guide on writing! Check out A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing .

Hi, I am also wondering if there is a similar guide for descriptive writing in particular?

Hey Melanie, unfortunately Jenn doesn’t currently have a guide for descriptive writing. She’s always working on projects though, so she may get around to writing a unit like this in the future. You can always check her Teachers Pay Teachers page for an up-to-date list of materials she has available. Thanks!

I want to write about the new character in my area

That’s great! Let us know if you need any supports during your writing process!

I absolutely adore this unit plan. I teach freshmen English at a low-income high school and wanted to find something to help my students find their voice. It is not often that I borrow material, but I borrowed and adapted all of it in the order that it is presented! It is cohesive, understandable, and fun. Thank you!!

So glad to hear this, Nicole!

Thanks sharing this post. My students often get confused between personal narratives and short stories. Whenever I ask them to write a short story, she share their own experiences and add a bit of fiction in it to make it interesting.

Thank you! My students have loved this so far. I do have a question as to where the “Frog” story mentioned in Step 4 is. I could really use it! Thanks again.

This is great to hear, Emily! In Step 4, Jenn mentions that she wrote the “Frog” story for her narrative writing unit . Just scroll down the bottom of the post and you’ll see a link to the unit.

I also cannot find the link to the short story “Frog”– any chance someone can send it or we can repost it?

This story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. You can find a link to this unit in Step 4 or at the bottom of the article. Hope this helps.

I cannot find the frog story mentioned. Could you please send the link.? Thank you

Hi Michelle,

The Frog story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. There’s a link to this unit in Step 4 and at the bottom of the article.

Debbie- thanks for you reply… but there is no link to the story in step 4 or at the bottom of the page….

Hey Shawn, the frog story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link Debbie is referring to at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit and you would have to purchase that to gain access to the frog story. I hope this clears things up.

Thank you so much for this resource! I’m a high school English teacher, and am currently teaching creative writing for the first time. I really do value your blog, podcast, and other resources, so I’m excited to use this unit. I’m a cyber school teacher, so clear, organized layout is important; and I spend a lot of time making sure my content is visually accessible for my students to process. Thanks for creating resources that are easy for us teachers to process and use.

Do you have a lesson for Informative writing?

Hey Cari, Jenn has another unit on argumentative writing , but doesn’t have one yet on informative writing. She may develop one in the future so check back in sometime.

I had the same question. Informational writing is so difficult to have a good strong unit in when you have so many different text structures to meet and need text-dependent writing tasks.

Creating an informational writing unit is still on Jenn’s long list of projects to get to, but in the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out When We All Teach Text Structures, Everyone Wins . It might help you out!

This is a great lesson! It would be helpful to see a finished draft of the frog narrative arc. Students’ greatest challenge is transferring their ideas from the planner to a full draft. To see a full sample of how this arc was transformed into a complete narrative draft would be a powerful learning tool.

Hi Stacey! Jenn goes into more depth with the “Frog” lesson in her narrative writing unit – this is where you can find a sample of what a completed story arc might look. Also included is a draft of the narrative. If interested in checking out the unit and seeing a preview, just scroll down to the bottom of the post and click on the image. Hope this helps!

Helped me learn for an entrance exam thanks very much

Is the narrative writing lesson you talk about in https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/narrative-writing/

Also doable for elementary students you think, and if to what levels?

Love your work, Sincerely, Zanyar

Hey Zanyar,

It’s possible the unit would work with 4th and 5th graders, but Jenn definitely wouldn’t recommend going any younger. The main reason for this is that some of the mini-lessons in the unit could be challenging for students who are still concrete thinkers. You’d likely need to do some adjusting and scaffolding which could extend the unit beyond the 3 weeks. Having said that, I taught 1st grade and found the steps of the writing process, as described in the post, to be very similar. Of course learning targets/standards were different, but the process itself can be applied to any grade level (modeling writing, using mentor texts to study how stories work, planning the structure of the story, drafting, elaborating, etc.) Hope this helps!

This has made my life so much easier. After teaching in different schools systems, from the American, to British to IB, one needs to identify the anchor standards and concepts, that are common between all these systems, to build well balanced thematic units. Just reading these steps gave me the guidance I needed to satisfy both the conceptual framework the schools ask for and the standards-based practice. Thank you Thank you.

Would this work for teaching a first grader about narrative writing? I am also looking for a great book to use as a model for narrative writing. Veggie Monster is being used by his teacher and he isn’t connecting with this book in the least bit, so it isn’t having a positive impact. My fear is he will associate this with writing and I don’t want a negative association connected to such a beautiful process and experience. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thank you for any information you can provide!

Although I think the materials in the actual narrative writing unit are really too advanced for a first grader, the general process that’s described in the blog post can still work really well.

I’m sorry your child isn’t connecting with The Night of the Veggie Monster. Try to keep in mind that the main reason this is used as a mentor text is because it models how a small moment story can be told in a big way. It’s filled with all kinds of wonderful text features that impact the meaning of the story – dialogue, description, bold text, speech bubbles, changes in text size, ellipses, zoomed in images, text placement, text shape, etc. All of these things will become mini-lessons throughout the unit. But there are lots of other wonderful mentor texts that your child might enjoy. My suggestion for an early writer, is to look for a small moment text, similar in structure, that zooms in on a problem that a first grader can relate to. In addition to the mentor texts that I found in this article , you might also want to check out Knuffle Bunny, Kitten’s First Full Moon, When Sophie Gets Angry Really Really Angry, and Whistle for Willie. Hope this helps!

I saw this on Pinterest the other day while searching for examples of narritives units/lessons. I clicked on it because I always click on C.o.P stuff 🙂 And I wasn’t disapointed. I was intrigued by the connection of narratives to humanity–even if a student doesn’t identify as a writer, he/she certainly is human, right? I really liked this. THIS clicked with me.

A few days after I read the P.o.C post, I ventured on to YouTube for more ideas to help guide me with my 8th graders’ narrative writing this coming spring. And there was a TEDx video titled, “The Power of Personal Narrative” by J. Christan Jensen. I immediately remembered the line from the article above that associated storytelling with “power” and how it sets humans apart and if introduced and taught as such, it can be “extraordinary.”

I watched the video and to the suprise of my expectations, it was FANTASTIC. Between Jennifer’s post and the TEDx video ignited within me some major motivation and excitement to begin this unit.

Thanks for sharing this with us! So glad that Jenn’s post paired with another text gave you some motivation and excitement. I’ll be sure to pass this on to Jenn!

Thank you very much for this really helpful post! I really love the idea of helping our students understand that storytelling is powerful and then go on to teach them how to harness that power. That is the essence of teaching literature or writing at any level. However, I’m a little worried about telling students that whether a piece of writing is fact or fiction does not matter. It in fact matters a lot precisely because storytelling is powerful. Narratives can shape people’s views and get their emotions involved which would, in turn, motivate them to act on a certain matter, whether for good or for bad. A fictional narrative that is passed as factual could cause a lot of damage in the real world. I believe we should. I can see how helping students focus on writing the story rather than the truth of it all could help refine the needed skills without distractions. Nevertheless, would it not be prudent to teach our students to not just harness the power of storytelling but refrain from misusing it by pushing false narratives as factual? It is true that in reality, memoirs pass as factual while novels do as fictional while the opposite may be true for both cases. I am not too worried about novels passing as fictional. On the other hand, fictional narratives masquerading as factual are disconcerting and part of a phenomenon that needs to be fought against, not enhanced or condoned in education. This is especially true because memoirs are often used by powerful people to write/re-write history. I would really like to hear your opinion on this. Thanks a lot for a great post and a lot of helpful resources!

Thank you so much for this. Jenn and I had a chance to chat and we can see where you’re coming from. Jenn never meant to suggest that a person should pass off a piece of fictional writing as a true story. Good stories can be true, completely fictional, or based on a true story that’s mixed with some fiction – that part doesn’t really matter. However, what does matter is how a student labels their story. We think that could have been stated more clearly in the post , so Jenn decided to add a bit about this at the end of the 3rd paragraph in the section “A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?” Thanks again for bringing this to our attention!

You have no idea how much your page has helped me in so many ways. I am currently in my teaching credential program and there are times that I feel lost due to a lack of experience in the classroom. I’m so glad I came across your page! Thank you for sharing!

Thanks so much for letting us know-this means a whole lot!

No, we’re sorry. Jenn actually gets this question fairly often. It’s something she considered doing at one point, but because she has so many other projects she’s working on, she’s just not gotten to it.

I couldn’t find the story

Hi, Duraiya. The “Frog” story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit, which you can purchase to gain access to the story. I hope this helps!

I am using this step-by-step plan to help me teach personal narrative story writing. I wanted to show the Coca-Cola story, but the link says the video is not available. Do you have a new link or can you tell me the name of the story so I can find it?

Thank you for putting this together.

Hi Corri, sorry about that. The Coca-Cola commercial disappeared, so Jenn just updated the post with links to two videos with good stories. Hope this helps!

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How to Teach Creative Writing to High School Students

Creative Writing was forced onto my schedule; I didn’t ask for it. But it ended up becoming my favorite class period of the day. While academic English courses can feel high-stakes and always short on time, Creative Writing can be a refreshingly relaxed elective class. In many districts with loose curriculums, Creative Writing is what you make of it. In this post, I outline six steps to show you how to teach creative writing to high school students.

Why Teach Creative Writing

Before we get into the how , let’s first address the why . Why bother teaching Creative Writing in the first place? Students’ basic skills are lower than ever; is now really the time to encourage them to break the rules?

If you want to get really deep into why you should teach Creative Writing, I have a whole post about it here.

But think about why you love reading. Is it because you were made to annotate or close read a bunch of classic novels? Probably not. You probably fell in love with reading while you were reading something that was fun. And because it was fun, you read more, and your skills as a reader grew.

The same principle applies to writing. If we can make it fun for our students, perhaps we can foster a love for it. And passion is what leads, eventually, to mastery.

Giving our students the opportunity to fall in love with writing is a gift that might help them grow in their academic writing later.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #1: Decide on Your Standards or Goals

Your school or district may have a mandated syllabus or curriculum. Mine did not. 

Whether you’re given student goals or have to create them, you must have an overall vision for what your Creative Writing class will accomplish. 

Is this a laid-back, engaging course designed to help students discover the fun in writing? Or is it a supplement to rigorous academics for college-bound high school students? 

If you know your school’s student population well, I encourage you to think about their needs. Some students just need to write more–more of anything, but lots more. Some students are high achieving and ready to write their first novels! If possible, design your course around the needs and interests of the general student population in your school or district. 

Regardless of how rigorous your Creative Writing course will be, deciding on these goals first will help you in backwards planning. 

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #2: Choose Your Final Assessments and Big Projects

Before we can start planning our lessons, we have to decide what skills or knowledge our students will need. And to know what they need, we have to decide on their summative assessments.

Will your final assessment be a short story? A collection of poetry? Are you required to offer a final exam?

Once you know what students will need to do, you can make a list of the skill they’ll need. This list will become a list of lessons you’ll need to teach.

Fairy Tale Retelling Project

My Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great Creative Writing assessment. For this project, students had to first choose a fairy tale. Then, they rewrote the story from the perspective of the villain.

This project works really well because students have structure. They can pick any fairy tale they want, but they can’t write about just anything.

Secondly, students already know the story, so they don’t have to worry about a beginning, middle, and end. The open-endedness of writing a story completely from scratch has paralyzed my students before. Structure allows students lots of creative freedom without the excuse of “I don’t know what to write.”

Author Study Project

If you’d like your Creative Writing class to help beginner writers have fun and just get some practice with fiction writing, a Fairy Tale Retelling Project would probably be perfect for your class.

Another project I’ve done with my students is an Author Study . In this project, students choose one author to study in-depth. Then, they attempt to replicate that author’s style in an original work.

If you’d like your class to also include lots of exposure to other writers or classic literature, then this might be a great assessment for your class.

Learn more about doing an author study in this step-by-step post.

Test or Final Exam

I also gave my students a final exam focused on literary terms.

This Literary Terms Test allowed me to test students on the academic knowledge they gained throughout class instead of their writing ability. This test also helped me fulfill my district’s requirement of having a final exam at the end of each course.

Once you’ve decided on your class’s major projects and assessments, you can begin designing the rest of your class.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #3: Backwards Plan

Now that you know what your students will need to do at the end of this class, you can list out everything you need to teach them in order for them to be successful.

For example, if you opt for an author study as a final project, you know what you will need to cover. You will need to teach students some literary terms so that they can describe an author’s style. You’ll need to show them how to analyze a poem.

During the course of your class, you’ll also want to expose students to a variety of authors and mentor texts. Students will need to practice basic writing techniques in order to replicate those of their chosen authors.

If you need some inspiration for what kinds of lessons to teach, check out this post on essential Creative Writing lessons.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #4: Decide on Your Class Structure

Once you’ve decided on the end goals for your Creative Writing class, you can use them to help create day-to-day plans. 

What will your class look like? Will it be full of lots of quiet and independent work time? Will it be full of frenetic energy with students working in collaborative groups? Are students writing in notebooks or on laptops?

Of course, a successful class will most likely include a mixture of all of the above. But it’s up to you to decide on your ratio. 

Again, I encourage you to think about your school’s population. If you’re on ninety-minute blocks, is it realistic for students to be quietly writing that whole time? If you have high-achieving students, might they benefit from working independently at home and then getting and giving peer feedback during class time?

Use your goals to help decide on a general class structure. 

Warm-ups for Creative Writing

You’ll need a consistent way to begin each class.

When I initially began teaching Creative Writing, I just wanted to provide my students with more time to write. We began every class period with free writing. I gave students a couple of prompts to choose from each day, and then we’d write for about ten minutes. 

( Those journal prompts are right here . Every day includes two prompts plus a third option of freewriting.)

Students were given the option to share part of their writing if they wanted to. Every couple of weeks I’d flip through their notebooks to make sure they were keeping up, but I only read the entries they starred for me in advance. 

Later, I wanted to add some rigor to my Creative Writing class and leverage more mentor texts. I created a Poem of the Week activity for each week of the course. 

This gave students the opportunity to study professional writing before using it as a mentor text for a new, original piece. 

(You can read more about using these Poem of the Week activities here.) 

As my goals for the class and my students change, so did the way we began class. 

How can you begin your class in a way that supports the end goals or teaches the desired standards? How often will peers work together?

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #5: Focus on Engagement Strategies

Now you can actually start planning lessons and projects!

But as you do so, focus on creating engaging ones–especially if your class is meant to be a fun elective.

Need more tips? Check out this post full of Creative Writing teaching tips!

Use Mentor Texts and Lots of Examples

Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together without knowing what the image was going to look like? It would be pretty difficult! Similarly, students need lots of examples of strong writing to aspire to. 

Without clear models or mentor texts , students will happily turn in unread drafts. They’ll choose the first word that comes to their mind instead of searching for a better one. 

But if you surround students with great writing, highlight strong technique when discussing the writing of others, and challenge them to notice the details in their own writing, they’ll naturally become better at self-editing.

I don’t believe that you can provide students with too many mentor texts or examples of strong writing. As you teach Creative Writing, keep or take pictures of strong writing samples from students to use as examples later. 

Nearly all of my lessons and projects include an example along with instruction.

Model and Create with Your Students

You can even use your own writing as an example. When I had students free write to creative writing prompts, I always wrote with them. Sometimes I would then put my notebook under the document camera and model reading my own work.  

I would cross out words and replace them or underline phrases I thought were strong enough to keep. Model for students not just great writing, but the process of strengthening writing.

And then give them plenty of time to edit theirs. This is when having students engage in peer feedback is a game-changer. 

Without great writing to aspire to, however, students easily become lazy and turn in work that is “good enough” in their eyes. Don’t let them get lazy in their writing. Keep throwing greater and greater work in front of them and challenge them to push themselves. 

(This is another reason I love using Poem of the Week warm-ups –they expose students to a new writer every week!)

Set Clear Expectations

Creative writing causes a lot of students anxiety. There’s no “right” answer, so how will they know if they creatively wrote “correctly?”

Help them out by setting clear expectations. Offering a rubric for every project is great for this. If you can, give them specifics to include. “At least 500 words” or “three or more similes” are nice, concrete guidelines that students can follow.

Give Students Choice

Offering students choice always boosts engagement. It lets students take charge of their learning and pursue something that interests them.

For example, when I teach odes , students are given the opportunity to write about something they love.

With an author study , students can study a writer whose style and work they admire.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #6: Use Clear and Structured Expectations

While showing students excellent prose or perfect poetry should help inspire students, your writers will still need some hard parameters to follow. 

Academic writing is often easier for students than creative writing. Usually, academic writing follows a structure or certain formula. The rubric dictates exactly how many quotes need to be included or how long an essay needs to be. MLA or APA formats tell students how to punctuate quotes and citations. 

These rules don’t apply to creative writing. And while that’s exactly what makes creative writing awesome, it’s often overwhelming. 

So do your students a favor and give them some clear expectations (without, of course, entirely dictating what they need to write about).  

The project also includes a rubric, so young writers know what should be included in their stories.

Don’t give your students so much creative freedom that it paralyzes them! Your writers are still students; give them the same level of structure and organization that you would in any other class. 

Engage your students in more creative writing!

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Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #7: Give Students Choices

So how do you give students frameworks, requirements, and uphold high expectations without stifling their creativity?

Give students choices. You can write about A, B, or C, as long as you meet requirements 1, 2, and 3. 

Offering choices works with small one-day assignments or lessons as well as bigger, longer-term projects. 

The previously mentioned Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great example of offering a narrow selection of choices that uphold expectations without dictating what students write. 

Another one of my favorite examples of offering students choices is my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-lesson . This lesson touches on everything students need to successfully learn creative writing. 

First I teach them the concept of showing vs. telling in writing through direct instruction. I show them lots of examples of expanding a “telling sentence” into a “showing paragraph.”

Then I model for students how I would write a paragraph that shows crucial information, rather than telling it. 

Lastly, I have students pick a strip of paper from a hat or a bag. Each strip of paper contains a “telling sentence” that they must then write as a “showing paragraph.” Students are limited by the sentences I provide, but they still have complete freedom over how they achieve that detailed paragraph. 

If you wanted to give students even more freedom, you could let them pick their sentences or trade with a peer rather than blindly choosing. 

Any time you can give students a choice, you give them permission to use their creativity and allow them to take some of the initiative in their own learning.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #8: Encourage Peer Collaboration and Feedback

We can tell students something a hundred times, but they won’t listen until a peer says the same thing. Us educators know the value of positive peer interaction, so don’t limit it in a creative writing class!

There are a ton of ways to implement peer interaction in a creative writing class. I often do this on the first day of class with a writing game. You’ve probably heard of it: everyone writes a sentence on a piece of paper, then everyone passes the paper and adds a sentence, and so on. 

I highly encourage you to use peer feedback throughout the class. I usually start having students share their work from day one with my free “I Am” Poem Lesson so that they can start getting used to having their work read by others immediately.

Make getting feedback so routine in your room that students don’t even question it.

It’s really tempting to let students get away without sharing their work. We don’t want to make shy or anxious students uncomfortable. I mean, what better way to completely ruin creative writing for a student than to make them feel embarrassed all the time, right?

But keep trying to encourage shy students to share. Even if that means you share it anonymously or read it aloud for them. 

I recommend including some kind of peer feedback with every writing assignment . Yes, even short practice assignments. This will work as a kind of “immersion therapy” for receiving feedback on more involved work.

After some time, you might find that your students even begin to share their work without your prompting! 

I like to organize the desks in my Creative Writing class so that students are in little groups. I’ve found that at least half of my classes will begin talking and sharing with one another in their little groups while working on projects. 

They’ll ask each other questions or to remind them of a word. They’ll read sentences aloud and ask if they sound right. Personally, I would much rather hear this kind of chatter in my class than have a dead silent room of boring writers!

However you decide to allow students to work together, be sure to provide the opportunity. Reading and getting feedback from peers could possibly teach students more about writing than any of your instruction (sorry!).

One of the truly great things about teaching creative writing to high school students is that there often isn’t a rigid curriculum. Of course, this is also sometimes one of the worst things about teaching creative writing to high school students!

You have total freedom over the assignments you give, the standards you teach, and how you organize and structure your classroom. After a few years of teaching Creative Writing, however, I’ve found that sticking to these six steps is a great way to have a successful semester.

If you’re excited about teaching your Creative Writing class, but are running low on prep time, check out my complete 9-week Creative Writing course ! Included are two different types of warm-ups, poetry analysis activities from well-known authors, mini-lesson, projects, and more!

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