Always Learning • Always Growing
Prompt #24:
You set sail on an adventure.
When do you leave?
Where are you going?
Who is with you?
How have you prepared?
What is your goal?
What are your fears?
Write the exposition of the story of your journey.
Prompt #24 – Challenge:
You discover a stowaway on board. It creates conflict. Write the inciting incident scene.
Prompt #24 – Super Challenge:
Finish the story.
Avoid cliché.
Surprise the reader.
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Prompt #23:
Who or what scurries? Where? Why?
For this exercise, you’ll need three columns and seven rows. Label the first column “who/what.” Label the second column “where.” You choose whether where means location or destination. It doesn’t have to be the same for each who/what. Label the third column “why.”
Complete your chart. You will have seven who/what‘s partnered with their own where‘s and why‘s.
Write one sentence for each, using your most magnificent sentence-structuring skills.
Prompt #23 – Challenge:
Select a mood that you feel works well with the concept of scurrying. Write a scene that includes 3-4 of the who/what‘s from the base prompt. Keep the where‘s and why‘s too.
You don’t have to use the same sentences you created earlier, but you certainly may. Choose diction that best conveys a scurrying mood. Craft imagery that makes your reader feel, well, scurried.
Hint: You might even want to look up scurry to maximize its meaning(s).
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Prompt #22:
Words are magical. Let’s make something spectacular today.
Below you will find five sets of words. Choose one word from each group, and write a sentence using all those words. Look at the lists carefully. Let ambiguity work for you.
You may reorder the words however you like. Include as many additional words as you need. Experiment with sentence structure. Make punctuation do some heavy lifting.
While it’s fun to create nonsensical sentences sometimes, you should aim to write a brilliant and, well, magical sentence with this prompt.
scale
scoop
plant
address
excuse
groan
champion
fly
squeak
fool
upstage
jam
highlight
bandage
flesh
frame
notice
number
produce
report
study
type
tower
wave
label
Prompt #22 – Challenge:
Opening with the sentence you have just crafted, write a narrative of at least 500 words.
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Prompt #21:
In literature, we associate wind with seasons and change. Wind stirs up, brings in, and carries away. Ponder those three actions for a moment.
Write 100-200 words about a time in your life when change came and stirred things up.
Write 100-200 words about a time when change brought something new.
Write 100-200 words about a time when change carried away something.
Prompt #21 – Challenge:
Write a poem of 3-5 stanzas that explores the three actions of winds you contemplated above. Use diction and imagery that craft a mood authentic to what you felt in each season.
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Prompt #20:
Wallpaper. It’s the background to everything that happens in a room. Sometimes it is so muted that no one notices. Other times, it’s so loud that it drowns out everything else.
Good designers coordinate everything that goes into the room with the wallpaper. Harmony abounds. Bad designers ignore it altogether so that sometimes the wallpaper and the objects in the room clash, creating the visual equivalent of cacophony.
Think about your life. What is the wallpaper? What do you have going on in the background? Take a few moments to write a visual description of how the wallpaper looks in the entryway of your life right now. This space represents the part of you that people see when they first meet you. What are the colors? Patterns? Images?
Add details about the objects you’ve collected, the things you give time and space. To what extent do they harmonize or clash with the things you do?
For this part of the prompt, stick to sensory descriptions––sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures.
Prompt #20 – Challenge
Let’s go deeper. Explain the meaning behind the wallpaper and the objects that adorn your life’s entryway.
Why those colors, textures, designs, and objects? What is their significance? Is there obvious meaning in these things, or is their nature hidden? Why?
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“On Wednesdays We Write” will be on hiatus for the summer. Whew! It’s been a year.
The plan for this series is to write a total of 40 prompt and challenge prompt sets that teachers, students, and writers can use to generate creative ideas and stand-alone works.
Ultimately, these prompts will become a year-long writing unit for teachers to integrate as it fits their curriculum. We will publish this content as a booklet, complete with rubrics for each primary prompt, challenge, and super challenge. In addition, we will make available downloadable slide presentations for ease of using these prompts in the classroom, uploading them to an LMS, or incorporating them into remote instruction.
While we finish writing the next 21 prompts, the content on Always Learning HQ will shift to focus on personal statements and admissions essays. It’s that time of year again, and word on the street is that with a record number of colleges and universities choosing to be SAT/ACT-optional, essays will be even more important.
We also hope to drop some teaching resources that address style and mechanics and maybe even some helpful exercises for emerging literary analysis writers.
We’ll be back on September 1 with new prompts for “On Wednesdays We Write.” Have a restful summer!
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Prompt #19:
Here are two stacks of blank index cards. Let’s say each one contains ten cards. For the pile on the left, write one thing per card that you are grateful to have done so far this year. For the stack on the right, write one thing per card that you hope to do by the end of the year.
Prompt #19 – Challenge:
Choose one card from each pile to develop more fully. Use both narrative and descriptive elements as you reflect on the past and dream about the future.
Share your reflection or dream in the comments.
Not sure what’s going on with these “On Wednesdays We Write” prompts? Click here to find out.
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Prompt #18:
You’ve got 90 days to make it happen. What new thing do you want to see come into your life in the next three months? Is it a skill? Knowledge? Possession? Relationship? Experience?
Make a list of all the new things you’d like to explore in the next quarter. How many can you identify?
Choose one of the items on your list and explore in writing what it is, how you imagine it will impact your life, and what your action steps will be for making it happen.
Again, you have only 90 days, so get going with the groundwork, and make your life sparkle.
Prompt #18 Challenge:
Write a poetic tribute to the new thing you will pursue in the coming months. It can be as lofty as an ode, as basic as a limerick, or as unfettered as free verse.
Not sure what’s going on with these “On Wednesdays We Write” prompts? Click here to find out.
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Prompt #17:
What in your sphere is old? Think about the people, places, possessions, events, experiences, emotions, and attitudes that characterize your slice of the pie we call life.
Which of these has been around for a while? Are they still here because they are classics? Are they around because you don’t like change? Anything outdated? Unneeded? Unwanted? What does old look like in your life?
Identify something from each category above, and write a short paragraph about the history of each in your world.
Prompt #17 Challenge:
Title a document with the name of one of the elements you selected for the main prompt.
Divide your writing space into two columns.
In the left column, write why you should keep this old thing. In the right column, make a case for letting it go.
Prompt #17 Super Challenge:
Choose one of the following titles: “Growth: A Case for Moving On” or “Growth: A Case for Holding On.”
Write a fully developed work on one old thing in your life that reflects the title you have chosen. In this piece, explain the history, the case for moving on or holding on, and how you anticipate personal growth will manifest as a result.
Not sure what’s going on with these “On Wednesdays We Write” prompts? Click here to find out.
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Prompt #16:
Describe this photo. Include elements of color, size, shape, and pattern. What visual “textures” are present? What is happening with light? How does the light enable and enhance all the visual elements? Capture with your words a description so vivid that an artist could paint the scene.
Prompt #16 Challenge:
Journal about the associations you have with the image in this photograph. They might be psychological or emotional, real-life or imagined. What does it make you think? How does it make you feel?
Not sure what’s going on with these “On Wednesdays We Write” prompts? Click here to find out.
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