Last week, I was so deep into edits that I wasn’t able to teach my class, so that’s why there wasn’t a new prompt. Today, we had a wonderful class all about brainstorming. The kids formed teams of four, then they drew a topic from the hat. As a group, they brainstormed everything that the topic made them think of. Then they chose the four strongest ideas or words they’d come up with, and each student started a story in their journal.
I gave them two minutes to write two sentences, then they passed their journal to the left and got two minutes to write two sentences to go with the story they’d been passed. We had enough time to pass the journals around two complete times. Then the teams chose their favourite story of the four they’d created and one person from each group got to read it aloud to the class. It was great fun. And we ended up with some brilliant stories.
So, this week’s writing prompt is to brainstorm the word: Insects
After you’ve done that (only take 2-3 minutes), pick three things on your list that are the funniest, or silliest, or strongest, or invoke an emotion in you, and use them in a story. I would love for you to share your brainstorm lists as well as stories right here too.
Happy writing!
Gah! I can’t even brain storm this, you know how I feel about creep crawlies!!!!!! I need a nice sheet of glass between me and nature 😉 Kim’s roaches story makes me shudder
My list:
buzz!
sting!
skitter! (Yes, they all have exclamation points so far, because bugs make me EXCLAIM! I’ll try to stop. !!!)
dirty
speedy
in my bed
in my shoes
in my hair
roaches (because of “in my hair”–I had them fall from porch roofs into my hair when I lived in rural Maryland)
poisonous
spiders
leggy
Halloween
spider bait
need some chickens/ducks
not many in the winter (which is very nearly the only reason I like wintertime)
exoskeletons
oily, iridescent sheen (beetle bodies)
Joelle, this is fun! Insects majorly creep me out. I’ll bet you got some great emotion-driven ideas from these kids! And now I have something new to write about in my novel. There are lots of birds in my novel, and I’m thinking about that fact in reference to one item on my list: need some chickens/ducks. THANKS!