Seeking a daily writing prompt?
Dozens are as close as your curriculum

Using a "daily writing prompt" means using some informal writing prompt every day. It is not necessary or desirable to have the same type of informal writing prompt day after day.

You can vary:

• When you have students respond to the prompt.

• The major purpose(s) for which you use students' responses.

• The topic(s) you have students write about.

Fortunately, any topic from in your curriculum can be made into a prompt, so opportunities abound for you to exercise your creativity and make your daily writing prompt:

• A learning tool for students.

• A formative assessment tool for students and for you.

• A classroom management tool for you.

Your informal prompt for today

Before we get to the heavy-duty content, let me ask you a question:

What do you understand by the term daily writing prompt? Please answer in no more than three sentences. You have one minute.

There's a clock at the right and an on-site word processor at the end of this link. Have fun!

What you just did (you did do it, didn't you?) was respond to an informal writing prompt that's part of the "lesson" on this web page. It represents a easy, authentic way to use use writing in teaching.

Daily prompt requirements

For daily use, you need writing prompts that:

• Don't require lengthy "prewriting."

• Can be answered in a few sentences.

• Focus on that day's lesson

• Are worth writing about.

Often called write-to-learn prompts, informal writing prompts are expository writing prompts that meet each of those criteria. You can use them once or several times during a class to help you meet your annual writing objectives.

Everything you need to know to prepare, test, and use prompts every day to accomplish multiple classroom objectives is in my book Shape Learning, Reshape Teaching. You can skim the table of contents in the flip book at the bottom of the page.

Don't download daily prompts

By preparing your own daily writing prompt instead of downloading some from the Internet, you get more mileage from each prompt. You can not only have students write, but also:

• Require writing in formats that reinforce your writing instruction.

• Require writing on topics that reinforce what students are learning in their classes.

• Use student responses as formative evaluations.

The little effort that you need to spend to prepare your own prompts is well worth those benefits, don't you agree?

Don't grade daily prompts

You haven't time enough to grade informal writing even if grading the responses were desirable. Don't even try. Instead:

• Use class discussion to provide immediate feedback on responses.

• Give whole-class oral feedback on responses the next class session.

• Give individual feedback in writing regularly.

Informal writing is rough draft writing. Don't discourage students from working with ideas by yelling about errors in grammar, punctuation or spelling.

You can, however, encourage students to check their work quickly before they turn it in. A good way to do that is to tell students 30 seconds before the timer goes off to check their work for one particular error that's on your hit list for the year.

Not every student will have one of your "counts off" list items in every daily writing prompt. If you want to make the writing situations authentic, you have to allow time for situations to arise in which students need to address the errors you are targeting.

Without much effort on your part, your daily writing prompt can prepare students to write sensibly on demand with a minimum of stress. As a bonus, you'll see gains in comprehension of other course content as well.

Learn about various ways to use daily informal writing in your classroom.