Grade 8 Writing Prompts

Encourage narrative writing with a clever exercise. Class members watch episodes from movies and describe what happened to a character, including details about the setting, plot, and characters. Writers then craft a narrative about a...

What would happen if you took a trip in a time machine? Have kids craft narratives about a trip to the past or the future. The prompt includes questions to consider in the writing, as well as lines for kids to jot down ideas on or use to...

Ask your learners to dream up a myth set in modern day. These mythology writing prompts require individuals take on the role of an ancient Greek citizen who just woke up to a totally different world. Through this lens, class members...

The works of Carol Ann Duffy, Scottish poet and Britain's 2009 poet laureate, serve as a model for a writing activity that asks class members to select a character card, brainstorm lists of words, phrases, actions, and items associated...

Master a well-organized thesis statement with a short activity for a persuasive writing unit. Young writers read five different introductory paragraphs about various topics, find the main ideas addressed in each thesis statement, and jot...

An extensive portfolio project encourages your kids to reflect on their personalities with multiple writing assignments. From activities on extended metaphors to writing about an important day in their lives, kids explore the way they...

Practice descriptive writing with a prompt that includes a photograph. Writers craft the whole story of the single second caught in a photo using the provided questions to prompt their imaginations. 

Looking for suggestions on how to organize a creating writing workshop? For topic suggestions appropriate for various grade levels? Check out a resource packet, designed for English language arts instructors, that is packed with ideas...

Prior to assigning your class their own persuasive writing task, present this PowerPoint and complete the task as a whole class. It outlines characteristics of persuasive writing, as well as includes a great learning activity. Your class...

Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help...