Entry Twenty: Prompt Writing with a Twist

Historically, whenever we started the dreaded prompt writing our kids would sigh and we would have a mad rush of kids who, all of a sudden, needed to go to the nurse. It’s not fun…for teachers or kids. It never had a purpose except to help kids practice for the dreaded tests. We needed a change. This year we implemented community prompt journals and it has completely transformed this portion of our writing block!

We can do this during morning work so it doesn’t impair our writing workshop block. We pass out a different spiral to each student with a different prompt. The kids write to the prompt knowing that they have an immediate audience for their work. After students have responded to the prompt (usually the next day) we pass out the spiral to a different student to provide feedback. The students read work from each other and give one positive comment and ne comment to improve. Then they return the prompt back to its original writer so they can read the feedback. We are meeting standards galore because writing in different forms and giving feedback are our third grade CCSS and students actually enjoy writing because they have an authentic audience. Talk about a win-win!!!


Here is an image of the expections page we include in each spiral notebook:

Here is a sample opinion prompt that are students write to:

Try this prompt writing with a twist by checking out my store at teacher notebook or teachers pay teachers.