Creative writing is a skill that can be learned as soon as students can put sentences together. For elementary students, creative writing helps them practice handwriting, sentence formation, and creative thinking skills. Use these ideas to improve the creative writing instruction in your classroom.
Artistic Journaling
Elementary-aged students love to draw pictures, so you can use this to promote their creative writing skills. Give students paper that is divided in half; the top half can be blank and the bottom half should have sentence lines on it. Have students draw a picture, and ask them to write sentences explaining it.
You can provide prompts for this activity if your students do not know where to begin. Ask them to write about a dream they had, an invention they would like to create or a pet they wish they could adopt. Then they can imagine all the details to go with it and write them down.
Round Robin
Students can work together to create a story in the classroom. Have students work in small groups (or as a whole class, depending on the size of the class and the time you have). One student should start the story with a sentence, and the next student in line writes the next sentence. Have them continue until they have built an entire story.
For a variation on this procedure, have students each write sentences about one particular topic (such as a specific character or "the craziest day ever"). Put all of the sentences into a hat, and pull them out one at a time to tell the class story.
What Happens Next?
Use the stories you read to your students as an inspiration for creative writing in the classroom. When you read a story to children, ask them to imagine what happens after the story ends. They can think about where the characters go next, what they do, or who else might come into the story line. Then have them write a brief description of their version of the story's sequel.
You can also stop a story before the ending and ask students to predict how the story will end. Have them write their own endings to the story, and then you can decide whether or not to reveal the actual ending to them.
In a way, your elementary students are creating a basic form of fanfiction in the classroom this way.
