Pondering prompts

If ice cream sandwiches ruled the world. . .
Then I realized that those weren't my shoes.
Which is better, Facebook or Myspace and why?
Free write (of course)

These were the In Class Writing prompts I came up with as students watched as class was starting. Ignore the fact that I wasn't totally prepared. Normally I don't require that they share, it's optional, this time I told them that they would have to share with their neighbor, they would have the opportunity to share with the group later in the week. I went over the choices, told them they had 10 minutes and sat down to write in my comp book. I started writing about ice cream sandwiches, the topic left me cold so I switched to the second topic - I didn't get far. None of the topics really got my creative juices flowing, so I began writing about that, musing that I would perhaps change the prompts for the classes that followed. I brainstormed some prompts for future ICW's (I won't tell you now, I don't want to ruin the surprise).

I left the prompts alone. The kids really liked them, I had one student remark, "Why did you have to put all these good ones on one day? Couldn't you spread them out?" He came up later and asked if I would put some of the choices up again because he wanted to write about all of them. I told him to write them in his journal and he could choose one as a free write.

I was totally bored by these prompts, I'm not sure if it is because it's Monday or the fact that I spent all weekend grading drafts of persuasive letters. Whatever the reason, nothing was coming out of my pencil. The kids were fired up though - usually I am too, especially with the prompts involving food, (it's kind of a recurring theme that started with the line - "And that's why you can never trust an orange" which come up in kids writing still).

What if we. . .

We do in class writings (ICW) pretty often. I give 3-4 things to write about, one is always free write, and we write for 10 min or so. My rule was that they had to write for the entire time, even if it's "I've nothing to write I can't believe he's making us write even if we have nothing to write about. . . " When we first started this I would have to direct kids to keep writing, pantomiming writing across the room. As time has gone on a cry of dismay goes up when I call time, "A little bit longer" "I'm not done" "Waaaaaiiiit" The increase in activty extended to the sharing portion afterward. More and more students are willing to share what they've written. Last week an amazing thing happened: A student suggested that we take an entire class period to write, and then the next one to share, there were head nods and noises of agreement around the room - they WANT to write now, they look forward to the ICW's, they ask "are we going to write in our journals today?" and are disapointed if the answer is no. This has been one of my proudest moments. I've modeled writing, I write alongside them, I validate and encourage their writing by providing the opportunity to share in an environment that we've created that is safe and supportive. I was floored by their desire to devote an entire class to writing and am in the process of working that into my plans. I'll let you know how it works out!