Creative Writing Exercises to Keep Students Engaged

If you’re a journalism or English teacher, you understand just how much work it requires to encourage your students to become creative with the content they write. Some students can suffer from writer’s block while others haven’t yet developed a love for storytelling, but there are still exercises you can do to strengthen their skills.

Explaining a Topic in 100 Words 

You can challenge your students to write only 100 words when you want to provide them with a fun and mentally stimulating exercise. They’ll have to choose their words carefully and cut out filler content to get their point across. Provide them with a specific topic they may not know a lot about to ensure they do a bit of research. You can also utilize Adobe Education Exchange knowledge and expertise to obtain more resources and ideas on more exercises for your students to try if you’re doing distanced learning.

Practice Writing Headlines

Headlines are one of the main parts of an article or blog post that determine how many people choose to read the content. Headlines are often shared and reposted, making it necessary plenty of thought is put into them. It’s important for the headline to be factual but also get the attention of the reader and entice them.

Creating new headlines can boost creativity. Consider requesting that your students read real articles and create three headlines. You can provide feedback and discuss which one worked the best and why.

Write Movie Reviews

One of the most entertaining creative writing exercises is writing movie reviews. Consider having them pick their favorite movie to write about, which will pique their interest and allow them to show off their skills based on something they enjoy. You can even ask them to write about a specific episode of their favorite television show and analyze the characters and plot.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a practical and easy way to start each classroom where you can instruct students to write whatever comes to their mind for five minutes. They can use the time to share their feelings, personal thoughts, or even a story they want to write and then pair up with other students and share what they wrote each day. The exercise can gradually allow them to develop more confidence with writing creatively and help them to think quicker.

Develop Characters

A fun way to get your students thinking is by giving them a photo of a random person that they can create a character out of during their exercise. It can be of an elderly woman in her garden or a young soldier in the Vietnam war. Encourage them to think about each character’s interests, family, lifestyle, career, and habits to ensure they provide detailed information.

By finding new exercises you can give your students as they learn how to write creatively, it can help them to think outside of the box and learn how to use their imagination. You can help them to succeed and develop more of a love for creating content by making it fun and exciting.