Martin sketchley

3. Try story swaps
Give students a writing prompt and ask them to start writing. Then, after a few minutes, tell them to pass their paper to the student on their left. The next student has to continue their story. This works really well with intermediate level students and above, but do make sure that they continue the idea of the student before. You don’t want a story that starts ‘Once upon a time there was a very lonely dinosaur’ and then continues ‘who died and then there was a unicorn instead’.
4. Give them a story challenge
Superhero Storyboard
This is a great way to force students to think out of the box. You’ll need a dice and some ideas (or download these ones). Whichever setting, characters and prompts are landed on must be included in the story. Make sure students know that this doesn’t have to be right at the beginning (‘Once there was a castle and in the castle lived Super Girl and an evil green monster with a bone’), but to bring them in naturally. This can also make a great collaborative speaking game if you have time at the end of a lesson.
5. Try image-based writing
An image makes a great writing prompt. It does lead you to Google some very weird things though, such as ‘cat in space’ or ‘llama being arrested’. If my computer is being monitored by the CIA, they’ve probably got a lot of questions for me. You can find copyright-free photos on websites like Unsplash. Challenge students to write a newspaper article or a diary entry based on the picture.
6. Use comic book writing

When we think about a text, we often think of sentences and paragraphs – but there are many more kinds of texts that learners can produce. One that really helps young learners feel confident and enjoy writing is comics. Encourage them to invent their own characters and super powers before writing a short story. Include speech bubbles in your template so that learners are encouraged to write as well as draw.
7. Start speed writing
There’s such a thing as paralysing perfection. Sometimes, we need to get students in the mindset of fluency and speed over perfect grammar and punctuation. Give students a time limit for an activity (I like to use the length of a song). I’ve even heard of teachers asking students to write while blindfolded in order to get them out of the perfection mindset.