5 Fun Ways to Teach Creative Writing

Micro-fiction stories, the shortest and most concise form of narrative, are literary works that spark the imagination with just a few words. A fun exercise idea is to ask students to write a story with under 100 (or even 10!) words. One famous example of a micro-fiction story, written by Chilean author Augusto Monterroso, has only nine words: “When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.” In just a single sentence, Monterroso’s story sparks the reader’s curiosity and imagination. The reader feels compelled to fill in the blanks, which results in a variety of interpretations and a sense of surprise, intrigue, and ambiguity.

It is believed that Michelangelo once said that every block of stone has a statue inside, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. This quote makes a good analogy for the process of creating blackout poetry. Students choose an existing text (e.g., a page from a book, newspaper, or magazine) and create their own interpretation of it by covering specific parts of the page so only some of the words remain visible. There are many different ways to go about this:

• Black out words with sharpies
• Paint over words with different colours
• Make transparencies and play with opacity
• Draw pictures to cover words
• Etc.

Here is an example of a blackout poem:

Exquisite corpses are a wacky way of practising creative writing together as a class. In this game, creativity and silliness are encouraged, which means students are more likely to get excited about playing. Some variations have players alternate between sentences and drawings. The resulting story is often hilarious! You can adapt this game to incorporate concepts that your class is studying, or use it as an exercise to review word classes (parts of speech) or sentence structures.

Using visual prompts is a very common practice in creative writing. Here are some ideas for trying this activity with your class:

• Show your class a selection of photos or playing cards (e.g., Dixit or Mysterium cards).  Have each student choose one to write a short story or poem about the thoughts or emotions it inspires.
• Display visually striking book covers with the titles hidden, and ask students to imagine what the story is about. You can also do this with movie posters.
• Cover the text in the speech bubbles of a comic strip, and ask students to make up their own dialogue.
• Have your students make a photo comic using a camera or smartphone. The idea is to create a short story where both the images and the text bubbles help move the plot along.
• Ask students to create a narrative based on a work of art.

A great way to get the creative juices flowing when inspiration is lacking is to choose an everyday object and make up a story about it. Ask students to think outside the box and imagine, for example, that the object has a life of its own, has conversations with other objects, feels emotions, etc. Here are a few ideas you can try:

• Place a variety of objects (toys, action figures, stuffed animals, office supplies, etc.) on a table or in a box. Ask students to pick one to give it a life of its own and use it as a springboard to tell an exciting story.
• Ask all your students to write about the same object. Then, share and discuss their stories when they are done.
• Assign students partners and have them write different stories about the same object: one student writes a story with a happy ending, while the other one writes a story with a sad ending, for example. This exercise works with other pairings, too: a surprise ending vs. a circular ending, a funny ending vs. a moral ending, etc.