All writing prompts cue writing
Good prompts do a whole lot more

At the most basic level, writing prompts are just cues that writing a paragraph or more on some essay topic is required. “Turn in a 5-paragraph essay by Friday” is that basic kind of cue.

Basic and bad. Yuck.

Fortunately, few writing teachers’ prompts are that poor. Most specify at least a writing topic for the writing, although the topic may be described so broadly as to give very little help to the writer.

“Write about an important person in your life” is an example of a an essay topic so broad it will totally confound beginning and struggling writers.

Better prompts put cues in context

A better type of prompt includes context and directions that tell the writer the purpose of the writing, the audience, and the format of the final piece.

An assignment in a English language arts class might say this:

Write a five paragraph essay in which you recommend the school library purchase a specific book or piece of software.

Those directions tell writers the format is a five-paragraph essay, and the purpose is to persuade the staff to make a purchase. The directions imply that the audience is the school library staff.

I suspect, however, that the real reader is the English teacher and that no librarian will ever see the essays. What do you think?

Good prompts get real

Research shows that students master writing skills more readily when they write on authentic topics than when their writing topics are artificial. In educator-speak, authentic writing prompts are tied to actual course content.

From a student perspective, artificial topics are those that aren’t part of their everyday lives. Students spend most of their waking hours in school. For them, the classroom is the equivalent of their parents’ offices and assembly lines. It is their “real world.”

Students regard English class assignments about the legal drinking age or learner permits with the same sort of disdain employees feel when assigned to walk the supervisor's dog.

Students expect written assignments about history in history class, about algebra in algebra class, and about English in English class. They regard off-topic assignments (wisely) as activities about as vital as blowing bubbles.

Notice I did not say they would like those assignments. I said only that they expect them.

Students will gripe if you give them writing assignments about topics they are studying in English language arts class, but they’d gripe no matter what you give them. The important thing is that they won’t use the term bogus.

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Great prompts save you work

A good prompt includes all information students need to develop an appropriate response to a writing assignment.

You can see how much easier it is for students to work from a good prompt by comparing a good one with a poor one.

Add real writing prompts 2 ways

You have two different ways of incorporating legitimate, authentic writing topics into your curriculum: Informal and formal prompts.

• Informal promptsare short, ungraded writing assignments that can be used for learning, assessment, and classroom management

• Formal prompts allow students more time to think about their responses, but also demand more careful support and formatting.

Having both types of writing prompts in your kit will improve your teaching agility.

My ebook Shape Learning, Reshape Teaching answers common questions about informal writing. It shows sample prompts on various writing mechanics topics and discusses how each could be used.