assignment ideas for high school students

16 Ideas for Student Projects Using Google Docs, Slides, and Forms

July 31, 2016

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As you probably know, Google Drive is far more than a place to store files online. It also includes a suite of versatile creation tools, many of which perform the same functions as the ones we use in other spaces. These include Google Docs, a word processing program that behaves similarly to Microsoft Word, Google Slides, a presentation program similar to PowerPoint, and Google Forms, a survey-creation tool similar to Survey Monkey. Although Drive also includes other tools, these three are particularly useful for creating rigorous, academically robust projects. If your school uses Google Classroom or at least gives students access to Google Drive, your students are probably already using these tools to write papers or create slideshow presentations, but there are other projects they could be doing that you may not have thought of.

Below I have listed 16 great ideas for projects using Google Docs, Slides, and Forms.

Annotated Bibliography By the time a student reaches the later years of high school, and certainly by the time she’s gotten to college, it’s likely that she’ll be required to write an annotated bibliography, a list of resources that not only includes the bibliographical information of each source, but also a short paragraph summarizing the resource and reflecting on its usefulness for a given project. Usually an annotated bibliography is required as a part of a larger research paper, but it could stand alone as an assignment that tasks students with seeking out and evaluating sources just for the practice of doing so. And the research tools in Google Docs allow students to locate, read, and cite their sources all in one place. To learn more, see this guide from Cornell University Library on How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography .

Book Review Instead of a book report, have students write a book review instead. This is certainly not a new idea, but publishing the work electronically allows students to enhance the final product with the book’s cover image, a link to the book’s page on Amazon, and even links to other titles the author has written or articles on related topics. For models and inspiration, elementary and middle school students can read student-written reviews on sites like Spaghetti Book Club . Older or advanced students might work toward more sophisticated, nuanced review styles like book reviews written on Oprah.com .

Collaborative Story Because Google Docs is cloud-based, multiple people can work on a Doc at the same time. So students can work together on a story, a script for a play, or any other kind of group writing project. They can use the comments feature to give each other feedback and make decisions together. And because students can work from any location with an Internet connection, collaboration isn’t restricted to school hours; each group member can work on the project from any location whenever they have time.

Media-Rich Research Paper Any kind of research paper can be given a big boost when done in a Google Doc, because students can insert images, drawings, and links to other relevant resources, like articles and videos. Using the research tools built into Docs, students can research their topics and include in-text citations with footnotes.

Super Simple Blog If you don’t want to mess with actual blogging platforms, but want students to be able to experience writing blog posts that contain images and hyperlinks to other websites, this could be accomplished easily in a single running Google Doc.

Table Being able to organize information visually is an important skill, and students who understand how to build a table in Google Docs will have a skill for presenting all kinds of information in the future. They can be used as a compare and contrast exercise, to display data from an experiment, or even put together a schedule. Yes, you could do these things yourself, print them, and have students fill them out, but why not have students practice creating the tables themselves?

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story Because slides can contain hyperlinks to other slides, students could build a whole story where the reader chooses different options at key points in the story, leading them down completely different paths. The reader would consume the content as a slideshow, clicking on the links themselves as they go through. This could be a pretty massive undertaking, but we all know students who would be totally up for the challenge.

E-book These could take a variety of forms: mini-textbooks, children’s books, cookbooks or how-to manuals, personal art or writing portfolios, even yearbook-style memory books. To learn more about the possibilities, see my post from earlier this year on Student E-Books .

Magazine Along the same lines as an e-book, students could use a similar template to create a PDF magazine or newsletter that is shared online on a regular schedule. The possibilities here are endless, useful for student clubs or sports teams, classroom or grade-level newsletters, or magazines put out by groups of students who share a common interest, like gaming systems, soccer, or books.

Museum Kiosk Imagine if we could enhance science fair projects with a looping video display that provides the audience with vivid visuals and text about our topic. Or imagine an art show, where a self-running informational slideshow could be placed beside an art display to share the story behind the piece and photos of the work in progress? This is possible and EASY in Google Slides: Simply create a slideshow, then use the “Publish to the Web” feature to create a slideshow that auto-advances and has no need for a presenter. Pop that up on an iPad or laptop and you’re all set. This mock-up of a slideshow on Coral Reefs shows you what it could look like (click the image to open in a new window).

Short Film Students can upload their own images and add text boxes to a slideshow to create an animated story, then record the slideshow with a Google extension called Screencastify . They can either record their own voice as narration, add background music, or both. There are so many different kinds of films students could produce: illustrated stories or poems, final reflections for a 20 Time or Genius Hour project, video textbooks on content-related topics, or news-like feature stories of school or community events. In this quick sample, I added music from YouTube’s library of royalty-free music that anyone can use to enhance their recordings:

Video Tutorial Using the same screencasting software mentioned above, students could also create their own video tutorials by creating a Slides presentation on their topic (such as “How to Open a Combination Lock”), then recording the slideshow with narration. This would make a nice final product for a unit on informational writing or a way for students to demonstrate their learning at the end of a unit in science (“How to Take Care of Lab Equipment”), social studies (“How to Measure Distance on a Map”), or math (“How to Multiply Fractions”). Student-made tutorials could even be created to teach classroom procedures. And any tutorials students make could be stored for later, so other students can also benefit from them. Learn more about how Screencastify works right inside Chrome .

Peer Survey Whenever students need to gather data to support an argumentative essay or speech, let them gather data quickly and easily by creating a survey with Google Forms. Links to the survey can be sent out via email, QR codes , or through a post in a learning management system like Edmodo or Google Classroom. When results come in, students can use them to support whatever claim they are trying to make in their argument, or make adjustments based on what they discover in their research.

Feedback Form Have students provide feedback to each other’s presentations, speeches, even videos using Google Forms. Here’s how it would work: Each student creates her own form, asking for the kind of feedback she wants on the project. As other students view or the project, they can be sent to a form to offer praise or constructive criticism, which the creator would then be able to view privately and use to improve the project. Students could even use their feedback to write a reflection on their process after the project is done.

Quiz One great way to learn material is to create a test or quiz over the content. Have students use Google Forms to create their own multiple-choice, True/False, fill-in-the-blank, or open-ended quizzes on the content they are learning.

Visual Representation of Data Sets Whenever people enter responses to a Form, Google allows the form creator to view responses in charts and graphs. Have students gain a better understanding of how data can be represented visually by accepting responses (or entering their own fake ones) into a Form, then looking at how the numbers are represented in graphs. This could work well as a series of math lessons.

Way Beyond Worksheets

Just this morning on Twitter, someone posted a comment along these lines: “A worksheet on a Google Doc is STILL a worksheet. Students should be using tech to create!” I’ve heard this sentiment over and over, and it’s exactly why I’ve put this list together. Google offers some incredibly powerful tools if we know how to use them. I hope this list has given you a few new ideas to put into your students’ hands. ♦

What to Read Next

assignment ideas for high school students

Categories: Instruction , Technology

Tags: assessment , content area literacy , English language arts , Grades 3-5 , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , project-based learning , teaching with tech , tech tools

51 Comments

This is wonderful.

This is my first year teaching in an alternative high school. All students have IEP’s as well as social and emotional disabilities. I really want to focus on literacy as many are well below grade-level, ability wise. Writing of course is a big part of literacy. I’m looking for ideas that they can collaborate on, via Google Docs, Slides, etc. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Check out Boomwriter: A Fun Twist on Collaborative Writing . Lots of good resources there that you might like. Also take a look at Student-Made E-Books: A Beautiful Way to Demonstrate Learning .

I am an RSP teacher in Anaheim. For summer school I am going to have them build a “Bucket List” in Google slides.

Thanks for compiling these resources. I use many already but haven’t tried Screencastify yet. My district uses Google Classroom, but the forms app is blocked on student accounts- I think because it’s a perfect medium for under-the-radar cyberbullying (“How much do you hate Linda?…A little, a lot, a ton…”). Before teachers plan a lesson using forms, they should make sure the feature is enabled for students in their district. In my district, students can access forms and create them but they cannot send them to other students.

Thanks, Robyn. Good to know!

I love these ideas! You are so creative and now I have GREAT ideas for my SS project! Thanks! XD

this is all true

Our district is allowing extra credit this year and I have always been totally opposed to offering extra credit. These ideas are worth extra credit, and my focus this year is on what the students can teach me and the rest of their peers.

This gave me some good ideas for culminating activities. Thanks!

Thank you so much for sharing these ideas about creating projects by using the Google Drive! The middle school I teach at implemented a 1:1 program last year with Chromebooks, so the students have easy access to all of the Google apps. I had always grown up using Word docs and I was a little hesitant to start using Google docs at first. After just a few weeks, I absolutely fell in love with it! It is amazing how you can access all of your docs, forms, slides that you create from any device you’re using and the fact that everything automatically saves is just the cherry on top. I am grateful for this feature, especially working in a middle school where it is easy for students to forget to save something before exiting out. Although I teach Math, I found a lot of your project ideas to be utilized cross-curriculum and I truly appreciate it. I got my feet wet last year and had my students create google slides presentations in groups. At the beginning of this year, I started with a google form I created where students answered review questions from 6th grade Math. I love that when you get the results from all of the forms, you can easily see which areas students are struggling in and which areas they are proficient in because it is presented the results in graphs and charts. I just learned recently that you can create quizzes now, which is awesome because all of the testing in my district is done on the computers, so this will help prepare my students. I want to borrow your idea of having students create peer surveys that they can post on Google classroom in order to gather information and analyze results. This is a great skill for students to have. Thanks again, I truly enjoy reading your blogs!

Be positive at all time

Great collection of resources! Easy to read and very helpful for teachers who often do not get the tutorials they need to instruct with GAFE. I particular like the Museum Kiosk idea. It will work great will my history classes.

– Kevin

Hi everyone! I also would like to suggest my own (free) templates site. Im designing these presentations using “free” resources from other sites such as FreePik, FlatIcon,… and I think the result is pretty good. I invite you to have a look. The site is https://slidesppt.com

In the section of student blog posts, can you clarify how all the students in one class could be writing and posting a running blog which everyone in the class can read and respond to ?

This is Holly Burcham, a Customer Experience Manager. The idea Jenn laid out here is to simply create a shared Google Doc where each student would basically be responsible for his/her own page (literally page 1, page 2, etc.). Within a shared Doc, everyone with permission can be in and typing at the same time. Once “posts” are written, students can go in and add comments to others’ work. The comments would show up in the margins and would be arranged by corresponding content, not time like a typical blog post.

But, as you can imagine, this could quickly become very convoluted and a bit messy. The thought behind using Docs as a student blog is more for writing practice, getting the feel for writing a blog post without doing the real thing…

So, if you’re interested in your students truly creating a blog, we highly recommend checking out Edublogs and Kidblog . Hope this helps!

How are these good for projects? you said that these are for kid presentations, all I see are essay templates and idea’s for teachers to map out their classroom jobs(other then the coral)

Hi, Isaac! I’m not sure what could be used to map out classroom jobs specifically from this post, and I think the ideas here go way beyond essay outlines–please get back to me to clarify exactly what you’re referring to, because we believe all the ideas here are good for student use. Thanks!

You might update this post. Google Forms now supports branching which would be much easier to create a “choose your own” adventure type experience.

Thanks for the suggestion. I can picture how that would work, yes, but I guess the aesthetic experience might be lacking in a Google Form. With Slides you have complete creative freedom to design the slides like a real book. I guess it would be a matter of personal preference?

Where do I go to find accessibility features of Google docs, slides, and forms? I am a teacher of the blind and visually impaired. This technology is wonderful but without the ability to navigate the site independently, my students are at a lost. Can you direct me?

Hi! A couple of things that may be of help: Go to “Tools” in the menu bar and select Voice Typing (use Google Chrome). You can also click on Add-Ons in the menu bar and add the Speech Recognition Soundwriter extension for free. Here’s a link to find more Google Accessibility features — you just have to spend a bit of time looking through the list to see what may be relevant to your needs. I hope this helps!

You can also combine Google forms and docs to simplify book reports for elementary students: https://electriceducator.blogspot.com/2016/03/elementary-book-report-machine.html?m=1

Is there an available rubric or assessment piece for the museum kiosk activity?

Hi Colleen! No, sorry, I don’t have anything on that!

Hi I am a teacher at a elementary school and I was wondering if you had any ideas for what I could do for an autobiography book report.

Hi Madison,

There really are so many things you can have the kids do — I would first think about what you’re expecting the kids to be able to do in the end. What will actually be assessed and what will they be accountable for? (I suggest checking out Understanding Backward Design if you haven’t already.) From there, they can choose how to present what they learned, meeting the assessment criteria. I think using some of the ideas in the Slides section of the post could work really well, especially Student Made E-Books , or making a short film.

Madison, I love the idea of using Google Slides for autobiography book report. I’m thinking about Jennifer’s Slides suggestions and just tailoring it to your book report criteria/rubric. Thoughts?

thank you very much!!

Thank you! I can’t wait to explore some of these options more. This list is very much appreciated! 🙂

I really appreciate your kindness and your efforts and I’m going to try everything you have mentioned in this wonderful article

Thanks. Higher Ed ESOL Prof -no lesson prep for me… but I DO have my reading list for the next several (10-12) hours! All suggestions added to the original post are appreciated.

I am a huge fan of Google resources, but you have showed me some new ways I can use these. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for some great ideas! I have another suggestion that I have used before- my students really liked it- a collaborative Google Slides presentation. I did this for types of organic molecules as an intro to organic chemistry. Each pair of students in the class was assigned a specific molecule to research. They had to create 1 slide with some specific information and add to a collaborative google slides presentation that I shared on Google Classroom. When the slideshow was complete, they could all access it, and they used it to take notes.

Great suggestion Susan! Thanks so much for sharing this idea.

I am wondering if I can find similar google instructions to send to my students now that we are teaching remotely and 90% of them probably don’t know how to use Google. This would be a fantastic use of their time. Thank you

Take a look at Jenn’s Google Drive Basics video course ! I think it’s got what you’re looking for – it’s for teachers and students!

I am thinking about doing a Rap Challenge in which they (as teams based on which class period they are in) create lyrics using WWII vocabulary we have used.

I create raps for my students and my though was that I would take parts of ALL of their submissions and create a WWII rap to add to the collection they have heard already.

Which of the Google Drive features would be my best bet for collaboration like that while the students are all working from home?

Hi Jim! I think this could be done in Google Docs pretty easily, as they are just writing a script, correct? If you want to share video or audio, you can just put these files into a shared folder in Drive and give all students access to those files. I hope this helps!

Amazing ideas

An innovative way to eliminate paper.

Hi! I love this site. I am beginning to use technology in my higehr education classroom. Could you help me to suggest some kind of game to use in Communication Skilss? Thanks a lot

Hi! Check out our Gamification Pinterest board and see what might be relevant. Hope this helps!

I’m a college student (who is now a nanny which brought me to this page) and for the screen recording, I highly reccomend Loom over Screencastify. In my experience using both during the remote learning period, the video quality is much higher on Loom, the user interface is easier, and you can’t edit Screencastify videos in an external editor like iMovie. (I had to do a group presentation and since partner lived in Kuwait we used this vs Zoom, etc. to record the presentation since we weren’t recording at the same time. It was very difficult to figure out how to merge our parts of the presentation into a single file.)

Also with screencastify the time limit per video on the free version (5 min I think) was frustrating as my work was longer. May not be a problem for students but for educators using the tool who don’t have the premium, this could be highly inconvenient. With Loom there isn’t a time limit.

What an adventure for me, who’s relatively new to this google drive thing. Mind blowing resources. It’s amazing. I’m excited as to what I can do with and in google drive. I’m definitely taking it one day at a time, will surely enjoy this ‘CRUISE’. Thank you Jennifer.

What does it mean to type I am from Germany?

Hi Flannery! It can mean a few different things depending on the context–either typing on a keyboard or the “kind” of something (“What type of ice cream do you like?”). We’d love to give a specific answer, so please let us know which part of the post or which comment you saw that you’d like more clarification on. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing these ideas. July 2021

I love all the awesome ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. This post had so many options to choose from and some that I personally loved when I was in school. There are so many different ways to make learning fun with technology!

So glad you enjoyed the post!

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Kami Blog > Engaging Activities for High School Students

Inspiration

Engaging activities for high school students.

Student engagement strategies and active learning are key to learners bringing their best selves to the classroom. It’s important to use diverse fun activities in your lesson plan to maintain active learning. We’re here to help you make sure you don’t run out of ideas. Check out our engaging activities for high school students:

Here are 5 icebreakers to start the lesson

Have a daily riddle that the class solves before the lesson starts. They can break into small groups to brainstorm or call out answers for the whiteboard. Check out a collated list here to help you with riddle ideas.

Foster the habit of writing by giving a visual stimulus, such as an interesting photo, and asking your students to write something about it. Use this image generator to inspire the entire class and give them specific parameters about what you want to explore. Do this every day to develop their writing skills.

3. Discussion

Add all the questions you want to cover with your students to this editable spin wheel and give it a spin to start the class discussion.

4. Flash fiction

Flash fiction is about broad storytelling. Give your students a challenge to write a 6-word story. They can use any topic but stick to the parameters to introduce an idea, plot, and character. There are some fantastic examples here to get those creative juices flowing.

5. Human knot

This is a physical and fun activity to develop problem-solving skills. Ask the students to stand in a circle and join hands with two random people in the circle. This creates a human knot, and the goal is to untangle it. Make it competitive with larger groups by dividing students into smaller groups or pairs and seeing who can get untangled the fastest using those critical thinking skills!

10 Classroom activities to engage students

Now that everyone has warmed up review the below teaching strategies to spice up some learning activities with these ideas.

1. Host a Jeopardy quiz!

If you’re a fan of the tv show then put that fandom to good use and host a quiz on the topic you’re studying. This activity is ideal for when high school students need to get ready for a big test. Studies have shown that students that are quizzed are more successful. They can revise with index cards so they are really familiar with the topic beforehand. Divide the class up into two teams and draw a Jeopardy-style game on the board with titles based on the topics that will be covered in the test and quiz. Just like in the television show, each category should have points for each level of question. Keep it simple with 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25-point question levels. Give each team a buzzer from a board game or a bell for answering. The teams should consult with each other before buzzing in with an answer.

2. Play Guess Who

Learning who is who from history can get overwhelming so use this teaching strategy to help. Put those problem-solving skills to good use in history class (or others!). Describe a time, place, or person from history with only three clues. The entire class has to try to figure out who or what you are referring to, then race to the whiteboard to write the answer. The students can use their history books or clues around the room if they need to.

3. Journalling

Develop creative writing skills by asking each student to write a journal entry from someone else’s perspective. There are many famous diarists who provide key insight into life through history. You could allocate a different diary entry for each student and then ask them to read it in front of the class. For example, if studying the civil war you could allocate students to write as if they were soldiers, civilians, politicians, etc.

4. Entry tickets …and exit tickets

Put a stack of index cards next to your classroom door and write a question on the board. When your students come into class, hand out index cards, write down an answer to the question and hand it in —as their “entry ticket” to class.

The question should be something related to the day’s lesson, like “after last night’s homework assignment, what do you think about X?” or “after studying the material for today’s class, what are some areas you still need clarification on?”

Not only does this activity get your students engaged and interacting from the minute they walk into the classroom, but it also gives you valuable insights you can use to guide the day’s lesson plan.

When your students are getting ready to leave for the day, have them do the same thing—just with exit tickets (use Kami’s templates).

The same concept applies. Ask them a question about the day’s lesson, any questions they might have, or overall feedback—then collect their ticket before they head home. Reviewing their exit tickets will help you figure out where to adjust your lesson plan for the following day.

5. Brainstorming

Group brainstorming sessions are a great way to bring your students together to engage with whatever they’re learning. Instead of thinking about the topic alone at their desk, they get to expand their ideas with other students in small groups, which will help them be more engaged and gain a new perspective on the lesson. This is a fun way to develop helpful skills for high school students, especially around class discussion. Use Kami’s brainstorming worksheets for this activity idea.

6. Debate-style activity

Most students will have a view of what you’re learning. Use this to your advantage and create a school activity of debating the merits or detractions of whatever you are learning about. This is a good way to engage critical thinking skills as the best debaters will anticipate what the other person might say and be prepared. Get them to write down their main points on pieces of paper ahead so they can practice and be prepared for the debate. This can be done in front of the whole class and you can change the debaters each week.

7. Thumbs up / thumbs down

Thumbs up / thumbs down is a hands-on fun way to monitor if your students are following a story. Tell students to put their thumbs up if they agree with a statement or to put their thumbs down if they disagree. When students have a low energy level (maybe right after lunch?) Stand Up/Sit Down may be a better alternative.

8. Create a video lesson plan

Social media is a part of students’ lives, and those skills in making videos can be really helpful. Flip the tables and ask the students to put together a lesson on the specific topic. Ask the students to put together a video, and perhaps instigate a challenge to include certain vocabulary words you’re written on the whiteboard. This is a fun hands-on activity that could produce some great learning resources.

9. Think pair share

Think pair share can be used for a variety of topics; math problems, science processes, and reading. If you ask an open-ended question ask the students to think about it, then put them into small groups and let them discuss. Then ask all the students to contribute to the classroom discussion and share their thoughts in front of the class.

10. Roll the dice

High school students really respond to their learning when they feel engaged and part of it. Why not write down all the activities that you might have planned and number them? Then ask a student to roll the dice. Whatever number they roll is the activity you do for that lesson. You provide students with some potential impact on how they learn.

Student engagement strategies are a fun way to get the students learning and keep them engaged as their attention span might wane through the day (as might yours). It’s great to have lots of varied ways to engage the brain, body, and spirit. Please let us know on socials how you get on!

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Student Engagement Strategies

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100 Sketchbook Prompts Your Students Will Love

If you’re anything like me, you can never get enough good sketchbook ideas. I’m always looking for ways to engage students so that they truly want to work in their sketchbooks. Whether you use sketchbooks for project planning, skill development, brainstorming, or something else, you’ll find ideas here that will work for you. My sketchbook assignments and prompts take an “all of the above” approach, making the following list well-rounded.

Want an eBook with all these prompts? Click 100 Sketchbook Prompts eBook to find it!

The list covers many bases and is organized by category. There are prompts about animals, food, people, and other things that will spark interest among students. This list is geared toward secondary students, but you’ll find a lot here that will work for younger students as well. Take a look and see what will work best for you and your students. Add your own favorite sketchbook assignment in the comments below!

Click here to download the list!

These prompts are an amazing place to start. However, knowing how to implement the prompts and manage students with sketchbooks is important, too! If you’d like ideas to help your students develop their creativity, drawings skills, and information retention, be sure to check out the following two PRO Packs, which can be found in our PRO Learning .

Sketchbook Ideas that Really Work
Implementing Sketchnotes in the Art Room

100 Sketchbook Prompts Your Students Will Love

Draw someone you sit by in an odd pose.
Draw family members with things that are important to them.
Draw yourself (or someone else) painting toenails.
Find a quiet place in a crowd. Draw the crowd.
Draw a relative by the light cast from a TV/Phone/Computer or other screen.
Make a portrait of yourself in twenty years. Or in fifty years. Or both.
Draw a masked man (or woman) that is not a superhero.
Draw the ugliest baby you can imagine.
Draw two sports figures–one in a dynamic pose, one in a static pose.
Draw two self-portraits with odd expressions.
Draw something or someone you love.
Draw hair. A lot of it.
Take a picture of someone near you on a bus or in a car. Draw them.
Draw an animal eating another animal.
Draw your art teacher in a fight with an animal.
Draw an animal playing a musical instrument.
There is an animal living in one of your appliances. Draw it.
Draw a dead bird in a beautiful landscape.
Draw something from a pet’s point of view.
Draw an animal taking a bath.
Draw an animal taking a human for a walk.
Combine 3 existing animals to create a completely new creature.
Draw a family portrait. Plot twist: It is a family of insects or animals.
Draw the most terrifying animal you can imagine. Or the most adorable.
Draw a pile of dishes before they get washed.
Tighten a C-Clamp on a banana. Draw it.
Draw a slice of the best pizza you have ever seen.
Draw junk food and the wrapper.
Draw your favorite food.
Create your own restaurant. Draw the restaurant, your executive chef, and a 12-item menu.
Draw the ingredients or process of your favorite recipe.
Draw salt and pepper shakers.
Draw fresh fruit or vegetables, or something fresh from the oven.
Draw a salad.
Draw the oldest thing in your refrigerator.
Draw a piece of fruit every day until it becomes rotten.
Draw everything on a restaurant table.
Draw what is in the rearview mirror of the car.
Draw moving water. Draw still water.
Draw an object floating.
Make a drawing of all of your drawing materials.
Find a trash can. Draw its contents.
Draw tools that belong to a certain profession.
Draw three objects and their environments. One of the three should be in motion.
Draw the interior of a mechanical object. Zoom in, focus on details and shading.
Create three drawings of messes you have made.
Draw five objects with interesting textures: wood grain, floors, tiles, walls, fabric, etc.
Draw a collection of purses, wallets, or bags.
Draw your favorite well-loved object or childhood toy.
Draw a watch or another piece of jewelry.
Draw something hideous that you keep for sentimental reasons.
Draw something with a mirror image.

Technical Skill/Skill Development

Draw all the contents of your junk drawer with one continuous line.
Make a detailed drawing of a rock.
Draw a dark object in a light environment.
Draw a light object in a dark environment.
Make a detailed drawing of five square inches of grass.
Draw a transparent object.
Draw a translucent object.
Do several studies of eyes, noses, and mouths in a variety of poses.
Draw an interesting object from three different angles.
Value Studies–Draw three eggs and part of the carton with a strong light source.
Draw three metallic objects that reflect light. Focus on highlights and reflections.
Refraction–Create two drawings of separate objects partially submerged in water.
Make three drawings (your choice of subject) using materials with which you are not familiar.
Draw a piece of patterned fabric with folds.
Draw a bridge and all of its details.

Creativity/Originality

Draw yourself as an original superhero.
Make a drawing that looks sticky.
Draw a mysterious doorway or staircase.
Draw an empty room. Make it interesting.
Draw a flower. Make it dangerous.
Draw an object melting.
Draw an imaginary place, adding all kinds of details.
Draw a gumball machine that dispenses anything but gumballs.
Danger! Draw yourself in a dangerous situation.
You are on the back of the bus. Figure out who is with you, where you are going, and why. Illustrate and explain.
Draw what’s under your bed (real or imagined).
Draw the most incredible game of hide-and-seek you can imagine.
Create a new sport. You can improve an existing sport, combine two existing sports, or come up with something completely new.

Open-Ended Themes

Make a drawing that is totally truthful.
Make a drawing that lies all over the place.
Make a drawing that is completely and utterly impossible.
Story Illustration: Fix a story that you don’t like, or reflect/improve upon one you do.
Let someone else choose your subject and tell you what to draw.
Draw your greatest fear.
Use song lyrics, quotes, or poetry to inspire a drawing.
Find the three most useless objects you can and draw them.
Draw an interesting form of transportation.
Draw something for which you are thankful.
Go somewhere new and draw what you see.
Draw something that can’t be turned off.
Draw something soothing.
Draw something you think sounds or smells incredible.
Draw something that needs fixing.
Draw something you’ve always wanted.
Draw something out of place.
Draw something that should have been invented by now.
Draw something you keep putting off, or something that causes you to procrastinate.

Does this list inspire you to take some sketchbook assignments head on in your art room? Or maybe the opposite is true and you are finding that you feel underprepared to teach drawing skills. Maybe you fall somewhere in between and you just need a little more inspiration to tweak your drawing curriculum. These are all great reasons to take a peek at our course, Studio: Drawing . The class is jam-packed with hands-on learning experiences, advanced technique tutorials, and opportunities to share and learn with art teachers just like you.

What are your favorite sketchbook prompts to use? How do you use sketchbooks in your classroom?

Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

Timothy Bogatz

Tim Bogatz is AOEU’s Content & PD Event Manager and a former AOEU Writer and high school art educator. He focuses on creativity development, problem-solving, and higher-order thinking skills in the art room.

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9 end of the year activities for high school students

by mindroar | Nov 7, 2021 | blog | 0 comments

Are you facing down the end of the academic year with your high school students? Your students are probably tired, disengaged, and basically itching to get out of school?

And you are probably feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and also itching to finish all that marking before your break too!

Today we have nine end of the year activities for high school students. In this list, you are bound to find something that is a salve to that itch, for you and your students.

1. Adulting 101

The first activity we have today is awesome. No joke. Want to know what it is? This End of Year Activities for High School Students activity by OCBeachTeacher

It’s FREE and is perfect because it has several end of the year activities for high school seniors. Because they really dgaf about school right now.

But show them some activities where they have to think about their lives beyond school and you’ll have them hooked.

The download includes a student self-assessment of their adulting skills, writing prompts for real-world problems such as roommate problems, and an interview with an alumni/alumna.

2. Surviving Senioritis

The second of our end of the year activities for high school seniors is this Poetry Activities, Surviving Senioritis & End-of-Year, Traditional & Digital product by Julie Faulkner.

This bundle includes activities and projects for the following six poems:

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” Dylan Thomas
“An Indian Walks In Me” By Marilou Awiakta
“Walking Away” By C. Day-Lewis
“If You Forget Me” By Pablo Neruda
“The Dash” By Linda Ellis
“Live Like You Were Dying” sung by Tim McGraw

The mini-unit covers the six poems over six lessons and can be used either in-class or digitally (using Google classrooms). It also includes printable versions of the poems and links to audio or visual versions of the poem.

3. Senior survival guide

The third of our end of the year activities for high school seniors is this End of Year Senior Survival Guide by Mr C Spills the Tea. This activity bundle has six activities for senior students to complete, including:

Letter to a junior (year 11 student)
Teacher tips
Hashtag trending
Overcoming obstacles
Playlist essentials

The project is designed to be a ‘Senior Survival Guide’ booklet that a senior student completes and gives to a student entering their final year.

4. Last week of school activities

This product by The Daring English Teacher is a great end of year activity for high school students. But, it is geared towards younger high school and upper middle school students. The bundle includes fifteen activities to help students reflect on their year.

Included in this bundle of fun end of the year activities for high school students are:

class survey
class pennant banner (bulletin board banner activity)
summer coloring page
snapshot project
my favorites of the year
social media reflection
survival list
classroom commercial
letter to incoming students
letter to my future self
thank you letter
story rewrite
classroom quilt (bulletin board activity)
find someone who
plot diagram

These activities are great because some give you feedback on how your students felt about your class and some give tips to students in your future classes.

Other activities encourage students to reflect on favorite memories from class and to thank those who have helped them throughout the year.

5. Escape room

In this fun end of year activity for high school students, students have to escape the room by completing six different secret missions. Created by The SuperHERO Teacher, this escape room focuses on encouraging a grown mindset, career readiness, and mindfulness.

Students have to complete six secret missions and tasks include:

Creating a team mission statement and completing mazes and letter unscrambles
Growth mindset vocabulary crossword puzzle and letter unscramble
Comprehension questions based on an information text about Mona Patel and a blackout poetry task
Analyzing three candidates for an art teacher job by looking at their cover letters and resumes and then answering riddles task
Devising a solution to a ‘worst case scenario’ prompt and escaping, then using Morse Code to answer a riddle
Student read about famous failures and anser questions, then use a Cipher Wheel to anser a final riddle

6. End of year games

These end of the school year activities for high school students were created by Carla McLeod. They are fun, engaging, and FREE!

Activities include:

teacher appreciation/apology letters
student-generated summer reading lists
personal theme song activities
end-of-year celebration ideas and more

7. End of year movies

Let’s face it – we’ve all been there. You have a hundred papers to mark, grades to enter, and a rapidly diminishing period of time to do it in. Don’t feel guilty , use a movie.

English with Ease has created these fun end of year activities for high school students that are common core aligned. The product includes 20 educational videos and 38 ELA task cards that are cover common core skills.

Included are:

20 educational video links to access the videos
movie summaries and suggested activities for each movie
38 ELA Movie Test Prep task cards/powerpoint slides for each movie – each task card has a movie-based reading response prompt to be answered in paragraph or essay form, 5-point writing checklist/grading rubric, brainstorming section, and final draft section

Not only does this product help you keep students engaged in those final few classes, but it also helps them practice important common core skills. Bonus: it gives you some time to get that grading done!

8. End of year growth mindset reflection

Another fun end of the year activity for high school students is my product . This fun visual worksheet encourages students to think about the goals (academic or personal) that they have reached or missed during the year.

It also encourages students to think about why they may have reached or missed goals and what they can do differently next time.

The worksheets also ask students to reflect on the poems and texts they have studied during the year, and to think about which have stuck with them and why.

9. End of year fun activities

Career and Employment Prep has created a bundle of these end of the year activities for high school students. Included in the bundle are the following fun activities:

a personal infographic
an escape activity
a year-end reflection card set
and rebus puzzles

Another great idea to tackle that end of the year blah disengagement is to review skills your students didn’t quite get.

Great skills to review are those that they use in every subject – study skills and research skills.

See here to find out my favorite way to review study skills and here for a fast and easy way to review research skills.

Chess (Gr. 1-4)
TV (Gr. 1-4)
Metal Detectors (Gr. 2-6)
Tetris (Gr. 2-6)
Seat Belts (Gr. 2-6)
The Coliseum (Gr. 2-6)
The Pony Express (Gr. 2-6)
Wintertime (Gr. 2-6)
Reading (Gr. 3-7)
Black Friday (Gr. 3-7)
Hummingbirds (Gr. 3-7)
Worst Game Ever? (Gr. 4-8)
Carnivorous Plants (Gr. 4-8)
Google (Gr. 4-8)
Honey Badgers (Gr. 4-8)
Hyperinflation (Gr. 4-8)
Koko (Gr. 4-8)
Mongooses (Gr. 5-9)
Trampolines (Gr. 5-9)
Garbage (Gr. 5-9)
Maginot Line (Gr. 5-9)
Asian Carp (Gr. 5-9)
Tale of Two Countries (Gr. 6-10)
Kevlar (Gr. 7-10)
Tigers (Gr. 7-11)
Statue of Liberty (Gr. 8-10)
Submarines (Gr. 8-12)
Castles (Gr. 9-13)
Gutenberg (Gr. 9-13)
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Advertisements : create an advertising campaign to sell a product. The product can be real or imaginary. Try using this to teach persuasion, as an assignment for speech class, or to reinforce skills learned in a consumer class.
Album Covers: create artwork for an album. The album may be connected to a skill (such a multiplication) and should demonstrate or explain how that skill is used. Or the album cover may be connected to a novel and the art work might present a relevant theme in the story. Another use would be to have students create natural disaster album covers in a science class where the cover would depict and explain the event.
Autobiographies: write the story of your life. This assignment may help you teach autobiography or reinforce a broad range of writing skills.
Awards: create awards to present to historical figures, scientists, mathematicians, authors, or characters from a novel.
Banners: create an informational banner. Students could create time lines of the American civil war or the Spanish alphabet.
Bar Graphs: create illustrated bar graphs. These may be used to explore data sets, use statistics to support a point, or illustrate a growth or change in a market.
Biographies: write the life story of someone else. It could be a friend, family member, historical figure, or a fictional character.
Blogs: create blogs for literary characters or historical figures. Create an actual blog for free at blogger.com or just have students write and organize articles on white printer paper if the internet is not available.
Blueprints: create blueprints or floor plans of a scene described in a novel, an historic setting, or an earthquake proof bridge or structure.
Boardgames: create boardgames where students review course concepts. Game play should be based around answering review questions correctly.
Book Clubs: Students read either novels or selections from the text book and discuss the readings in small groups. Students might be required to take notes about the discussion or provide an audio recording of the discussion as the artifact to be evaluated. Students might also create discussion questions beforehand and have these approved by the instructor. This activity may be applied to reading selections in any subject.
Booklets: create an informational booklet. In the past I’ve had students create booklets showing comma rules, narrator’s perspective, genre, figurative language, and more. Booklets can be applied to almost any unit of study and all they require to make are some blank white printer paper folded in half, one of my favorites.
Bookmarks: create illustrated bookmarks with relevant information. A bookmark might summarize previous chapters or contain the definitions of challenging vocabulary words.
Brochures: brochures can be made as either tri-fold or bi-folds. Students can create informational brochure’s about geographic locations, a story’s setting, or a natural event such as how a tidal wave is formed or how the food chain works.
Calendars: create a calendar charting the dates of key events. This can be applied to an historical event (like a famous battle), a scientific event (such a the path of Hurricane Katrina), or the sequence of events in story.
Casting Calls: select people (fictional, famous, or otherwise) to play the role in a movie version of story or historic event. Explain which character traits were considered in each selection.
Cheers: create a cheer explaining a scientific or mathematical process. Alternately, a cheer could summarize the events of a novel or an historic episode.
Classified Ads: create classified type ads as seen in newspapers. It could be a wanted ad or a M4F type ad depending on the age of your students. Update the concept and have students create Craigslist ads or Ebay listings. Example applications include covering vocabulary words, introducing multiple characters in a drama, examining figures in an historical event, or studying endangered and extinct plants and animals.
Coat of Arms: create a family coat of arms for a character from a novel or a person from history. A good activity for teaching symbolism.
Collages: create a collage or collection of images related to a topic. Images can be hand drawn, printed, or clipped from a magazine or newspaper. These work best with large thematic ideas that give students the ability to maneuver, like a collage representing slavery, the 1920s, or an entire story.
Comic Strips or Books: create an illustrated comic strip or book representing events from history or a work of fiction.
Crossword Puzzles: create a crossword puzzle to review definitions of challenging vocabulary words. Great for science, social studies, reading, and even math terms.
Diary Entries: create a diary entries for a person from history or a fictional character who experienced an historic event. Can also be applied to characters in a story or survivors of a disaster.
Dramas: create a play. Students might adapt an existing story or create original works and plays can be centered around any event in history.
Editorials: provide an opinion about a hot topic in history or science. Should the space program be reduced? Is US military intervention in current conflicts appropriate? Is global warming a concern?
Fables: create fables that teach a lesson. Students may create illustrated story boards of their original fables or even dramatic adaptations which they then perform. A good character building activity.
Flags: create a flag representing either an actual county (like Libya) or fictitious place (like Narnia). This project should be accompanied by a brief report explaining what ideas the colors and images on the flags represent.
Flash Cards: create cards helpful for study and review. Flash cards can be created for any subject and topic.
Flowcharts: students create flowcharts analyzing and representing a mathematical process, a natural event, or an event in history or literature.
Glossaries: If students need to understand a large array of vocabulary words, consider having them construct glossaries to help them study and review.
Hieroglyphics: create pictures that represent vocabulary words. Alternately, students could retell the events of a story or historical episode in simple pictures.
ID Badges: create identification cards for characters from a work of literature or for people involved in an historical event. Include relevant details on the badges.
Illustrated Quotes: Have students choose a meaningful quote from a text that they are reading. They should explain why the quote interests them and then write the quote on a blank sheet of paper and draw related images.
Instructions: write instructions on how to perform an operation or experiment, diagram a sentence, or start a World War.
Inventions: create and illustrate your new invention that address a problem in nature or society. Address environmental or sociological issues.
Limericks: write limericks about events from history or scientific discoveries such as, “There once was a man named Sir Newton…”
Magazines: create magazines covering large units of study such as the Industrial Revolution or Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, that way many articles can be written. Images may also be drawn or printed and added to the publication.
Maps: create maps based on actual geographic or national boundaries and landmarks or maps illustrating the setting of a story and the journey of a character.
Merit Badges: create vocabulary merit badges where the term is defined in three or fewer words and a small image is drawn to represent the definition.
Movie Adaptations: plan a movie version of a novel, scientific discovery, or historical event. Pick who will play what role, plan scenes, write dialog, even create a soundtrack.
Murals: create a mural or a large drawing of many images related to a larger idea. A mural about the Harlem Renaissance might contain images of Langston Hughes,Â Countee Cullen, and W.E.B. DuBois.
Myths: write creation myths to account for scientific or historic events or for a creative writing assignment.
Newscasts: deliver important information from literature, history, science, or math in the form of a newscast. Newscast can be prerecorded or presented live.
Pen-pals: write letters to and from important people from history or the characters in a story.
Poems and Raps: write a poem or rap reviewing any topic.
Postcards: similar to the pen-pals assignment above, but postcards have illustrations representing thematic concepts.
Posters: create posters to review skills. As a bonus, many of these posters can often be displayed during state tests, so if your students create high quality posters, the posters may be a useful resource during the test.
Questionnaires: create a questionnaire and survey students to gather an understanding about thematic issues from a text or social problems for a speech or presentation.
Radio Broadcasts: create a script for a radio program covering any appropriate field of study.
Reader’s Theater: silently act out the events of a story or text alone or with a group of people while someone reads the text aloud. Students should be given time to prepare their acting.
Recipes: students can create recipes about how atoms combine to form molecules (H2O), or how to create events like the French Revolution or World War I (add one Arch Duke).
Scrapbooks: create a scrapbook of your favorite poems or important events from a decade.
Skits: create a short skit to bring an historical event to life.
Slide Shows: if you have access to enough computers and a projector, I suggest having students create PowerPoint presentations. With just a little instruction, students should be able to create pretty flashy presentations, and you can combine this project with a research paper as a culminating activity.
Soundtracks: create a soundtrack for a movie version of a novel or historical or natural event. Use actual songs or just describe the mood of each song if you do not know song titles. Explain why you feel that each song matches the event. A good activity to review mood.
Stamps: students create commemorative stamps honoring people, depicting elements from the periodic table, or challenging vocabulary terms.
Storyboards: create story boards summarize a short story or to plan a narrative, movie, or presentation.
Tests: write a test to help you review unit goals and objectives. Questions can be multiple choice, matching, and true or false. Answer keys should be provided.
Vocabulary Quilts: create quilts with badges representing the meanings of vocabulary terms. Badges should have an image and a few words.
Websites: design websites that historical figures, scientists, mathematicians, authors, or characters from novels would have had. Also, student can create websites for historical movements, scientific theories, or literary concepts.
Worksheets: create review worksheets. Worksheets can be applied to any subject and topic of study.
Yearbooks: create yearbooks reviewing the characters and events from several stories that the class read or containing information about many important figures from history.

183 Comments

Tideas are very great for students. I want to apply all of this ideas.

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55 Journal Writing Prompts High School Students Love

September 28, 2020 // by Lindsay Ann // 10 Comments

Sharing is caring!

Do you use a writer’s notebook in your English classroom? Do you find yourself wishing that you had a list of journal writing prompts high school students will like?

In this post, I will be sharing 55 different journal prompts. That’s enough for the whole year of fun writing prompts, used 1x per week, for the whole semester if used 2-3x per week, and enough for the whole quarter if used every day.

Digital vs. Paper Writer’s Notebooks

Two years ago, I was determined to have my students write. Every day. Inspired by 180 Days, I wanted to be the writer’s notebook queen of the world and change students’ lives through journal writing prompts.

I went to the nearest Staples store and bought .20 cent composition notebooks. I gave them to students on the first day of school. We wrote in them, pasting in mentor texts for the first three weeks of school. Then, for various reasons, the writer’s notebooks stayed closed more often than not. It was not sustainable for me.

Now, I’ve written in a previous post about choosing ONE thing to be your precious at the beginning of each school year. If paper writer’s notebooks are your jam, then rock on, friend!

As for me, I now use and love digital writer’s notebooks. These fun writing journal prompts notebooks are created in Google Slides and shared with students via Classroom. These writing prompts for journals never get lost, are less time-consuming than regular writer’s notebooks, and can use all sorts of colors and design elements to capture students’ attention.

Journal Writing Prompts for High School Students

Below you’ll find 55 journal writing prompts. High school students will find plenty to say about these topics, but I suggest setting ground rules for writing and setting a time limit (with timer projected).

First: Write for the whole time.

Second: Don’t worry about making sense or making sure what you write is perfectly-edited.

Third: Be honest and be specific.

1st Set: Imaginative Journal Writing Prompts High School Students 💜

If you could invent anything, what would it be? Describe why you want to invent it, what it would look like, what it would do, etc.
Choose the animals that best represent your family members and closest friends. Explain why you have chosen each animal.
What if the world was made of Jello?
If your life was suddenly a hit reality television show, what would it be called and what would viewers say about it?
Describe your survival plan in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
Create the perfect alien.
You have three doors in front of you: red, blue, and green. The red door says “wing.” The blue door says “want.” The green door says “woke.” Which door would you choose and why? Describe what you imagine to be behind each door.
Explain what a forest looks like to someone who cannot see.
Write a recipe for happiness. What would the ingredients be? In what order and amounts would you add them? What instructions would you include for baking and serving?
Create your own original, symbolic names for five locations you visit every day.
Write a guidebook for the older generation to help them understand your generation.

2nd Set: Past, Present, Future Journal Prompts

If you woke up tomorrow with amnesia, what memories would you want to return? To forget forever?
What would your five year old self have to say to your current self if you met for coffee? What would your current self say to your 10-years-from-now self?
What are you most thankful for?
Do you think the past is the best predictor of your future? Why or why not?
How have you changed from when you were a child? Why?
What does the future hold for you?
Do you think your generation will “change the world”? Why or why not?
In what ways do you look to the adults in your life for guidance? In what ways can they learn from you?
What present-day issues are you the most concerned about? Why?
What do you hope you will always remember about high school?
What is trending right now on social media and what are your thoughts on it?

3rd Set: Personal Beliefs Writing Prompts

Do you believe in karma? Why or why not?
Do you believe in love at first sight? Why or why not?
Do you believe in the law of attraction? Why or why not?
Do you believe animals fully understand human conversation? Why or why not?
What are your “rules to live by”? Which one is the most important and why?
Do you believe in “carpe diem”? Why or why not?
Do you believe in an “eye for an eye”? Why or why not?
How have your family and friends influenced your beliefs?
Do you believe that people are the product of their environment? Why or why not?
Do you believe in second chances? Why or why not?
Do certain characteristics make people more likely to succeed? Explain.

4th Set: Top Ten Lists as Journal Prompts

10 things I should have learned by now.
10 words others would use to describe me.
10 of the weirdest things in my room.
10 things I want to do before I die.
10 of the best words in the English language.
10 things that are highly underrated / overrated.
10 reasons to wake up in the morning.
10 songs on my playlist right now.
10 of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever had.
10 things I know to be true.
10 things I want to give a “makeover” to.

5th Set: Hard Questions for Journal Writing

What is the meaning of life?
Which is better: too much of something or too little of something?
Which is better: truth or beauty?
Is social media a blessing or a curse?
What two questions would you ask to find out someone’s true self? Now, answer these questions yourself.
What does it mean to be human?
Define intelligence.
To what extent do gender, ethnicity, social background influence your life?
Is society today better off than it was 100 years ago?
What labels could others give you? Are labels helpful or harmful? Explain.
Do you believe human nature is evil or good?

Wrapping Up Writing Prompts for Journals

Feel free to save the images for each set of fun writing prompts questions and use them in an agenda slideshow or to post on Google Classroom.

If you are interested in ready-made digital journals, please take a moment to check out these popular journal prompts resources! I appreciate your support!

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

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Reader Interactions

March 3, 2022 at 3:46 am

Hi Lindsay, I think that these writing prompts you have come up with are just brilliant. I mean granted these are merely thoughts and questions we either ask ourselves, others or just think about and never bring out. I personally think it is important for people to actualize and put thoughts out verbally and visually. In this case, fellow writers and English students and anyone for that matter are able to see it and realize that these are actually not silly ideas that you might have thought of and overlooked at some point in your lives. But good reflective pannels for us to channel our inner writers and inquisitive thinking into and curiosity upon. I am still a beginner English teacher but have always been fascinated with power of what a few words put together becoming, a sentence, a sentence becomes a paragraph, a paragraph becomes an essay, an essay becomes a thesis, a thesis becomes a spark of curiosity and that curiosity becomes a revolution that bit by bit becomes the answer to a question being asked somewhere. Thank you for the ideas!

March 20, 2022 at 1:10 pm

My pleasure, William! You’ve put into words the beauty of inquiry and writing, even if it is only for one’s own eyes. Thank you for reading!

March 23, 2022 at 11:02 pm

i really hope these work i really think they will thanks so much

April 7, 2022 at 7:22 pm

You’re welcome! I hope that they work well for you. 🙂

April 26, 2022 at 8:13 pm

I really just LOVE these writing prompts! They are very concise and spark my imagination. Been teaching since fall Y2K and visited many of these types of posts. Yours are a cut above the rest.

April 30, 2022 at 8:23 pm

Thank you, James! I hope that you and your students have fun with these. 🙂

June 3, 2022 at 1:08 pm

Do you have a TpT store where we can buy your digital writer’s notebook?

June 4, 2022 at 5:56 pm

Yes, absolutely! Here are a couple of options:

1. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Creative-Writing-Mentor-Sentences-Digital-Notebook-2885186 2. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Digital-Creative-Writing-Journal-2729748 3. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/300-Google-Drive-Journal-Writing-Prompts-2715746

Hope this helps! Lindsay

July 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

These are so, so good! It’s hard to find writing prompts that don’t make my high school students roll their eyes, lol, but these are fantastic and sure to spark creativity. Thank you!

[…] growth, and a clearer sense of identity. Sources such as Journal Buddies, Story Writing Academy, Lindsay Ann Learning, and Money Prodigy provide many creative writing prompts for journaling, article writing, and story […]

Creative Writing Prompts For High School Students – 12 Categories

Published January 3, 2023

Are you a high school student struggling to find inspiration for your creative writing assignments? Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and can’t seem to come up with new and exciting ideas? If so, you’re not alone.

Many students struggle with coming up with ideas for creative writing, especially when they feel pressure to produce something original and engaging.

But the good news is that there are ways to break through the block and find inspiration for your writing.

For instance, by attending our award-winning creative writing summer programme , you’ll learn how to conquer the fear of the blank page. How? By learning proven formulas for creating brilliant stories.

Another way to have that creative spark is to use creative writing prompts.

This article will provide creative high school students like yourself with a list of creative writing prompts. So you’ll get the inspiration you need to get into the flow and start writing!

What are Writing Prompts?

Writing prompts are ideas that help writers overcome writer’s block and get started with their writing. They can come in various forms, including a

Or series of questions.

Creative writing prompts get your creative juices flowing. When you encounter a writing prompt, it encourages you to start writing!

What types of writing, you ask? It can be anything from fiction writing to essay writing. Creative writing prompts are even used to get you started with freewriting in your daily journal.

So you see, many writers find writing prompts a quick and easy way to begin a new writing project. Or to overcome writer’s block when they are stuck.

How Do You Use Writing Prompts?

There are many different ways to use writing prompts. Here are a few ideas:

Use writing prompts to start a new writing project.

Are you having trouble coming up with ideas for a new writing project? Try using a writing prompt to get started. You can use a writing prompt as the starting point for a

Short story
Essay, or any other type of writing.

Use writing prompts to overcome writer’s block.

Stuck on a particular piece of writing and can’t seem to move forward? Use writing prompts to brainstorm on how to proceed!

Use writing prompts to practice your writing skills.

As the old adage says, practice makes perfect! You can use writing prompts to practice different writing techniques or styles. Or try out different writing genres!

Use writing prompts to challenge yourself.

You can use writing prompts to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try writing about things you might not usually write about.

Say your comfort zone is writing fantasy stories. And you want to try something new. Why not use scary writing prompts as a starting point?

To use a writing prompt, choose a prompt that interests you and start writing. There are no hard and fast rules about how to use writing prompts – the important thing is to just start writing and see where the prompt takes you!

Creative Writing Prompts High School Students will Love

Write a story about a character who:

discovers a mysterious, abandoned house in the woods
suddenly gains the power of time travel
has to confront their greatest fear
is given the opportunity to live in a different time period
discovers a secret underground society
is given a magical object that can grant wishes.

Or, check out the other prompts too:

Write a poem about a summer day you will never forget.
Imagine that you are stranded on a deserted island. Write a story about your experience.
Write a letter to your future self ten years from now.
Imagine that you are a detective trying to solve a mysterious crime. Write a story about your investigation.

Creative High School Poetry Writing Prompts

Write a poem about a/an:

summer romance you will never forget
memorable experience you had with a friend
place that holds special meaning for you
moment of clarity or realisation that you had
person who has had a significant impact on your life
object that holds special meaning for you
dream that you had and can’t seem to forget
time when you felt completely lost
time when you felt completely free
moment of beauty that you witnessed

Writing Prompts with an Element of Suspense

is being stalked by an unknown assailant
wakes up with no memory of the past 24 hours
receives a series of mysterious, threatening letters
discovers a hidden room in their house filled with grotesque objects
is trapped in a strange, unfamiliar place
is being pursued by a dangerous, unknown entity
is being watched by an unknown pair of eyes
is being followed by a shadowy figure
hears strange noises in the middle of the night
finds a mysterious, unmarked package on their doorstep

Writing Prompts for Stories That Start with Dialogue

Start your story with a conversation between two characters who are:

meeting for the first time
meeting each other for the first time in ten years after graduation
trying to solve a problem
discussing a secret
trying to keep a secret from someone else
discussing their future plans
trying to make amends after a misunderstanding
reminiscing about the past
trying to persuade each other of something

Writing Prompts That Ask “What if?”

What if you:

woke up one morning with the ability to fly? How would you use this ability?
could time travel? Where would you go and why?
woke up one day to find that everyone in the world had switched bodies? How would you cope with this?
could read minds? How would you use this ability?
suddenly had access to unlimited wealth? How would you use this wealth?
could talk to animals? How would this change your life?
were the only person on Earth who knew how to speak a certain language? How would you use this knowledge?
could turn invisible at will? How would you use this power?
developed the ability to communicate with the spirits of the dead? How would this change your life?
could teleport anywhere in the world instantly? How would you use this ability?

Funny Writing Prompts for High School

wakes up to find that they’ve turned into a giant chicken
has a magic lamp that grants them absurd wishes
becomes the world’s worst superhero
accidentally becomes the president of the United States
is chased by a giant hamster
discovers that their reflection is actually an alternate dimension
becomes a world-famous rapper after a misunderstanding at a karaoke bar
becomes the world’s worst detective
is constantly followed by a cloud of bees
becomes the world’s worst secret agent

Do you have a brother or sister in middle school? Our middle school writing prompts are a great way for them to get into the flow of creative writing effectively.

Journal Prompts for High School Creative Writing

Write about a time when:
you felt particularly proud of yourself
you had to confront your greatest fear
you had a moment of clarity or realisation
you felt that life was wonderful
Write about a place that holds special meaning for you.
Write about a person who has significantly impacted your life.
Write about a moment of beauty that you witnessed.
Write about a dream you had and can’t forget.
Write about a memorable experience you had with a friend.

Non-Fiction Writing Prompts

Write an essay about a/an:

significant event in your life and how it has impacted you
person who has inspired you and why
current issue that is important to you and why
time when you had to overcome a challenge and how you did it
place that you have visited and why it was meaningful to you
hobby or activity that you are passionate about and why
book, movie, or TV show that has had a significant impact on you and why
social issue that you feel strongly about and what you are doing to make a difference
goal that you have set for yourself and how you plan to achieve it
person who has made a positive impact on your community and how they did it

Adventurous Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who goes on a:

solo hike in the wilderness and becomes lost
treasure hunt and faces unexpected challenges along the way
safari and encounters a rare and dangerous animal
white water rafting trip and gets stranded in the wilderness
mountain climbing expedition and faces unexpected challenges
scuba diving trip and discovers a hidden underwater world
hot air balloon ride and gets carried away by the wind
skydiving trip and has to make an emergency landing
parasailing trip and gets caught in a storm
snowboarding trip and gets caught in an avalanche

Science Fiction Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who is:
given a device that can predict the future
the only survivor of an alien invasion
recruited by a secret organization to fight against an alien threat
the only one who can communicate with newly-discovered alien species
the only one who can stop a group of rebels from taking over the world
the only one who can save the world from an asteroid heading towards Earth
the only human on a distant planet
Write a story about a character who travels through time and encounters their future self.
Write a story about a character discovering a portal to an alternate dimension.
Write a story about a character who is given a device that allows them to control time.

Scary Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who is
being stalked by a demon
trapped in a haunted house
haunted by the ghost of a loved one
terrorized by a clown
Write a story about a character who
discovers a cursed object and starts having strange, terrifying experiences
starts seeing strange, supernatural creatures in their dreams
hears a lady cry every night, but no one is there
notices a strange doll appear in their house, not knowing where it came from
listens to neighbours report they’ve been seeing a toddler running around the house, but your character lives alone

Fantasy Short Story Prompts

Write a story about a character who
discovers that they are a witch or wizard with magical powers
finds out they are the chosen one, destined to save the world from an ancient evil
realises they are a fairy or other mythical creature
is given a magical object that can grant wishes
discovers a magic book with secrets to the universe
receives a magical potion that transforms them into a different creature
accidentally stumbles into a world where everything is the opposite of what they know
gains a legendary staff that gives them the power to control the elements
enters a magical, mythical land ruled by an evil king
discovers that they are the reincarnation of a mythical hero

Need more Creative Writing prompts? Check out this article entitled “ 308 Creative Writing Prompts To Unlock Your Writing Skills .”

How Else Can I Improve My Creative Writing Skills?

1. read widely.

Reading improves your writing skills by exposing you to different

And Techniques you can incorporate into your own writing.

Did you know reading widens your vocabulary? It does! And vocabulary is an essential aspect of effective writing. The more words you know, the more effectively you can communicate your ideas.

Also, reading helps improve your comprehension and critical thinking skills. Both of these are valuable for analysing and synthesising information. So you’ll learn how to present ideas clearly in your writing.

2. Write Regularly…and Don’t Stop!

Think of writing as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes! Writing regularly makes you feel more comfortable and confident.

What’s more, it helps you develop your own voice and style. Once you hone the aspects that make you unique , you’ll stand out more!

Writing regularly also gives you a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. And you’ll be able to refine your writing accordingly.

The more you write, the better you will become at it. So maximise our creative writing prompts and make time to write every day. Even if it’s just for a few minutes!

3. Experiment with Different Writing Styles

Do you know that experimenting with different writing styles and techniques expands your writing skills? Why? Because doing so makes you a versatile writer. Able to adapt your style to different situations and audiences.

For example, writing poems even when you’re not used to poetry-writing forces you to think . To imagine and create! As a result? You get out of your comfort zone and explore. And you’re better able to reimagine your craft.

What are the common writing styles?

Descriptive – often uses similes and metaphors to help the reader experience the writing (e.g. songs, poems)
Narrative – flashbacks and foreshadowing are common elements of a narrative style with a clear, fleshed-out plot (e.g. novels)
Or Persuasive writing – convinces the reader to believe what the writer believes (e.g. essays, sales copy)

4. Join a Writing Community!

What better way to keep you motivated than by joining a writing community? A writing community provides support and encouragement. Being surrounded by like-minded folks passionate about writing can be a great source of inspiration!

Plus, you’ll be exposed to different writing styles and techniques. Which can help you expand your horizon and help you become a more versatile writer.

Joining a writing community can also be a great way to get feedback on your writing. Helping you identify areas for improvement.

Finally, do you know a writing community can be a great source of information and resources? Members often share valuable writing tips and strategies.

5. Enrol In A Creative Writing Course

What is one of the most effective methods in fast-tracking you to massive improvement in your writing skills? Taking a creative writing course!

Why does taking a creative writing course help you improve your writing skills? Because you’ll learn from experienced writers. While having the opportunity to practice writing under the watchful eye of expert tutors.

Creative writing prompts are useful for high school students looking for inspiration for new and original ideas. You can overcome writer’s block by tapping into your creativity in a new and exciting way.

These prompts will challenge and inspire you. So give them a try and see what amazing stories and ideas you can come up with!

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50 Engaging Narrative Essay Topics for High Schoolers

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What’s Covered:

Narrative essays vs. analytical essays, how to pick the right narrative essay topic, elements of a strong narrative essay, engaging narrative essay topics for high schoolers, where to get your narrative essay edited for free.

Narrative essays are an extensive form of writing that gives readers the opportunity to follow along as a person goes through a journey or sets of experiences. Rather than providing analytic insight, narrative essays simply share a story and offer a first-person account. These essays may seem easy to write at first, but it takes a certain finesse to write a narrative essay that is interesting, cohesive, and well-researched. Whether you’re looking for a unique topic to write about, or just want some new inspiration, CollegeVine is here to help! These 50 narrative essay topics are engaging, unique and will have you writing in no time.

A narrative essay is a great way to express your personal experiences and opinions, but it is important to remember that this type of essay is different from an analytical paper. In a narrative essay, you do not need to provide background information or explain your thoughts and feelings; instead, you simply tell a story. It’s important to avoid too much telling in your writing; instead, use creative details and vivid imagery to make readers feel as if they are actually right there with you.

Where You Will Encounter Narrative Essays

This type of essay is typically encountered in high school, where students may be required to write personal statements to prepare for their Common App essay . Narrative essays are also commonly seen in AP Language and Composition. Therefore, it’s important you are aware of the style because you are bound to have a narrative essay assignment.

Of course, before you start writing, it is important to pick the right essay topic. There are many factors involved in the process of picking the perfect narrative essay topic for your story.

You should always choose a topic that you are passionate about, since writing on something you care about will make the process much easier. Not only will it be more interesting to create your paper around something that truly interests you, but it will also allow you to fully express yourself in your essay. You also want to be sure that the topic has enough material to work with. If your chosen topic is too short, you will not have enough content to write a complete paper. For example, if you are writing about your experience getting lost at the mall, make sure that you have enough information to work with to craft an engaging narrative.

The best topic for an engaging narrative essay is one that focuses on showing versus telling, has a clear structure, and provides a dialogue. These elements come together to form an engaging narrative essay. Regardless of what subject you pick, any topic may be turned into a fascinating, A+ worthy narrative using the tips below.

Show, Don’t Tell

To write a good narrative essay, it’s important to show, not tell. Instead of simply informing your audience, show them what you mean. For example, instead of saying “I was nervous,” you could say “My heart began to race and my stomach filled with butterflies.” Also make sure to use sensory details, such as sights, sounds and tastes, and include a personal reflection at the end of your narrative.

Begin with a Strong Opening Line

A good narrative essay will begin with an attention-grabbing opening line. But make sure to avoid common clichés, such as “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Instead, come up with something original and specific to you and your situation. For example: “My pre-calc teacher was obsessed with circles. I mean, he even used circular note cards.” Or, “It all started the day my mom brought home a guinea pig.”

Follows a Three-Act Structure

A strong narrative essay follows the same three-act structure as other essays. But in order to make it interesting, you’ll need to come up with a creative way to break things down into sections. For example, using the guinea pig example from above, you could write the following:

Act 1 – Introduction: The day my mom brought home a guinea pig.
Act 2 – Conflict: The day I had to say goodbye to my beloved pet.
Act 3 – Conclusion: Looking back at how much I miss him now that he’s gone.

Conclude with Personal Reflection

To conclude your narrative essay, you’ll want to explain what this specific experience taught you or how you’ve changed. For example, upon realizing that her pre-calc teacher was obsessed with circles, the writer of the previous example begins to notice circular shapes everywhere. Another way to conclude your narrative essay is by touching on how this experience impacted you emotionally. For example, after losing his guinea pig, the writer explains how much he missed it.

Use Dialogue

Include a conversation in your essay to make it come alive. For example, instead of simply saying that you met a new friend, talk about how you introduced yourselves or what they were wearing when you met them.

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The following list of 50 narrative essay topics is divided into categories. This will make it easier to find a topic that fits your writing style.

1. What is a childhood song that still sticks with you today?

2. Your first day of Kindergarten

3. Talk about a time when you’re siblings looked up to you

4. Describe the best birthday party you’ve ever had

5. Talk about the best day you ever spent with a childhood friend

6. Explain your first childhood hobby

7. Describe your first halloween costume

8. A family vacation gone wrong

9. Your first family reunion

10. Describe a tradition that is unique to your family

11. Describe your family to a person who’s never met them before

12. What frustrates you most about your family

13. If you could only keep one memory of your family, what would it be and why?

14. Describe a time your family embarrassed you in public

15. The most beautiful place in the world

16. Your favorite season and why

17. If you were a part of nature, what element would you be? Why?

18. When you go outside, which of your senses are you most thankful to have?

19. Describe the first time you witnessed a tornado

20. Write a poem about your favorite season

21. Describe yourself as one of the four seasons

22. Describe a time in which you felt connected with nature

23. Describe the first time you played an instrument and how you felt

24. What major event would be much worse if music was removed, and why?

25. If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

26. What would a life without music look like?

27. If you could master one instrument, what would it be and why?

Relationships

28. What if you had never met your best friend?

29. Describe a time when you fixed a broken relationship

30. Talk about a movie that defined a relationship for you

31. Describe your first date

32. Describe the first time you made a friend

33. Describe your relationship with your parents

Self Reflection

34. Have you ever fooled someone? If so, describe what happened and how you felt about it

35. What is the worst thing you’ve done to someone else?

36. Write about the difference between how things seem and how they really are.

37. Have you ever been embarrassed in some way? If so, describe the situation and how it affected you as well as those around you

38. Have you ever witnessed something really beautiful? Describe it

39. Is your glass half empty or half full?

Overcoming Adversity

40. Have you ever been very afraid of something but tried your hardest to appear fearless? If so, describe that experience

41. When have you ever succeeded when you thought you might fail

42. What are your secret survival strategies?

43. Describe the last time you were stressed and why?

44. Describe a time when you were discriminated against

45. The most memorable class you’ve had and why

46. Your favorite study abroad memory

47. Describe your kindergarten classroom

48. Describe your first teacher

49. The first time you experienced detention

50. Your first field trip

Hopefully these topics will get you thinking about a personal experience that could make for a thoughtful and engaging narrative essay. Remember, a strong narrative essay must contain relatable details and a clear flow that keeps the reader entertained and engaged to read all the way to the end.

If you need some additional guidance on your narrative essay, use CollegeVine’s free peer review essay tool to get feedback for free!

20 Writing Prompts For High School Seniors [PDF Included]

Hello, high school seniors! Are you struggling to come up with ideas for your next writing assignment? Do you find yourself staring at a blank page, feeling uninspired and unmotivated?

Well, fear not! We have compiled a list of writing prompts that will help kickstart your creativity and get those words flowing. Today’s high school students have to engage in a lot of writing, particularly in their academic settings. And the only way to get better at it is through continuous practice.

Writing skills are bound to improve with a daily writing habit. Whether you’re a budding novelist, a poet, or a nonfiction writer, these prompts will spark your imagination and give you the inspiration you need to write your next masterpiece. So grab your favorite pen or laptop and let’s get started!

Writing prompts for high school seniors

Write a letter to yourself in middle school. What would you want them to know?
Write an essay about what role technology plays in your life
Write a story about how peer pressure affects all of the characters in the story
Select your favorite song lyric and turn it into a poem
Write an ode to your favorite subject in high school
What is the state of the globe now that global warming has reached its worst point?
Write a poem including something from each year of high school
What is trending on social media currently and what are your views regarding it?
What will you miss the most about high school?
Write an ode to your high school friends.
Reflect on a defining moment in your high school career and how it shaped you as a person.
Write about a challenge you faced during high school and how you overcame it.
Imagine that you are giving a graduation speech to your peers. What advice would you give them as they embark on the next phase of their lives?
Write about a person who has had a significant impact on your life and why they are important to you.
Reflect on a time when you had to make a difficult decision and how you came to that decision.
Write about a skill or talent that you developed during high school and how it has helped you grow as a person.
Imagine that you have the opportunity to travel back in time and give advice to your freshman self. What would you say?
Write about a book, movie, or song that has had a profound impact on your life and why it is meaningful to you.
Reflect on a time when you had to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. What did you learn from the experience?
Imagine that you are interviewing for your dream job. What skills and experiences have you gained in high school that make you a strong candidate?

Transforming your writing from meh to marvelous: Tips and strategies for high schoolers

Writing can be a daunting task, like a high-stakes game of Jenga where one wrong move could send everything crashing down. But fear not, my fellow word-wielders! With a few tips and strategies, you can stack your ideas into a towering masterpiece without breaking a sweat.

From brainstorming to editing, it’s all about finding the right balance and not being afraid to take risks. So grab your pen (or keyboard) and let’s dive into the wild world of writing!

Start with a plan: Before you begin writing, take a few minutes to brainstorm and outline your ideas. This will help you organize your thoughts and make sure your writing stays on track.
Be concise: High schoolers often have a tendency to be wordy in their writing. Try to be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid using unnecessary words or phrases.
Use active voice: Active voice makes your writing more engaging and direct. Instead of saying “the ball was thrown by John,” say “John threw the ball.”
Use strong verbs and adjectives: Using strong verbs and adjectives can help make your writing more vivid and engaging. Instead of saying “the car was fast,” say “the car zoomed down the road.”
Edit your work: Take the time to review your writing and make sure it is free from errors. Read your work aloud to catch any awkward phrasing or grammar mistakes.
Get feedback: Share your writing with others and ask for feedback. This can help you identify areas where you can improve and make your writing stronger.
Read widely: Reading widely can help you develop your writing skills by exposing you to different writing styles and techniques. Make a habit of reading regularly, both for pleasure and for academic purposes.
Practice, practice, practice: Writing is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. Set aside time each day to write, even if it’s just for a few minutes. The more you write, the better you will become.

Furthermore, high schoolers can also be indulged in some creative writing activities , to help them facilely sail through the turbulent waters of high school.

Writing prompts can be an excellent tool for high school seniors to enhance their writing skills and discover their unique writing styles. Writing prompts can be used for personal expression, college applications, scholarships, and even future careers. By practicing writing prompts, students can build their confidence and writing abilities, which can benefit them in various aspects of life.

Writing is an essential skill that can never be overlooked, and it is critical to learn how to express oneself in writing effectively. So, high school seniors, embrace the power of writing prompts and creative writing topics , and who knows, you might end up discovering your passion for writing and becoming the next great author, journalist, or blogger. Happy writing!

Sananda Bhattacharya, Chief Editor of TheHighSchooler, is dedicated to enhancing operations and growth. With degrees in Literature and Asian Studies from Presidency University, Kolkata, she leverages her educational and innovative background to shape TheHighSchooler into a pivotal resource hub. Providing valuable insights, practical activities, and guidance on school life, graduation, scholarships, and more, Sananda’s leadership enriches the journey of high school students.

Explore a plethora of invaluable resources and insights tailored for high schoolers at TheHighSchooler, under the guidance of Sananda Bhattacharya’s expertise. You can follow her on Linkedin

Writing Assignments for High School: Getting Started

Writing assignments for high school should engage young writers. High school writing assignments can be diverse and cover a range of topics.

What writing assignments for high school students will you introduce to a new class? High school writing assignments can shape the learning environment you want and provide important data.

The back to school rush will end. Routines, established. New shoes, broken in. Fresh notebooks, scribbled on. Maybe you’ve discussed the power of writing and language .

First writing assignments, assigned. Classes will write a paragraph, a paper, a reflection of some sort. Diving into teaching writing can be a slow process, or with older students, it can begin those first days of class. Here is what I know from teaching over a dozen years: Those first writing assignments with a new class, matter.

Meeting writing standards in an English class.

Students likely won’t produce papers at the start of the year with polished elements, meeting the standards for that particular class. (Of course.) Older classes will have an idea of expectations, of the work a paper requires. Still, it is important to establish expectations so writers understand your goals with them. It is only fair that everyone understand the standards.

Today, I’m talking about those first writing assignments. Dependent upon your community and classes, these ideas will look different for most teachers.

For the sake of this blog post, we’ll imagine a regular class. A class that doesn’t immediately produce near-perfection, and a class that has an overall idea of how to create a paper. Maybe the majority of classes fall into this segment? Some students enjoy writing; some don’t. A percentage want to be better writers; others don’t.

How do you determine which writing element to address first? How do I start writing assignments for high school students?

Setting the tone, building a community of writers, and unpacking standards are big goals, but with young writers, they are all necessary. Below are my thoughts, ideas, and processes for those first writing assignments for high school students.

These free writing activities will help young writers.

Gather data.

Students appreciate knowing that their teachers are on their side and that teachers will help them. As I first learn about my learners as writers, I explain that I want to see look at their writing skills. Older classes appreciate teachers not reteaching, which they rightfully see as boring.

To gather data, the writing prompt doesn’t matter much. Gather data from their first writing project.

The data that I gather is a starting point, looking to:

know areas where students are proficient or excelling.
identify areas where they need help.
understand them as writers.

I’ve gathered data in many ways. Typically, classes write a paragraph. I also use that opportunity to respond to students’ ideas as a great way to build relationships.

After that initial writing exercise, I move to a larger assignment, our first writing assignment. Before assigning that, we work together to create expectations.

Provide students with expectations for their writing assignments.

Outline expectations and grammar rules.

Frontload material so every member of your class has the same domain-specific language. Doing so starts conversations and allows classes to ask questions.

My presentation allows me to modify and add where classes need support. After providing the information, I post the presentation because students appreciate having material to consult as they work at home or in study hall.

And yes, I want students to add their ideas to our collaborative presentation. However, I want to establish common terms and expectations. For instance, I use the terms “topic sentence” and “thesis statement.” I know other teachers who use “claim.” Never do I want students to be confused! We discuss the ideas together, and practice them together; we take notes and discuss ideas together. Instead of making the process boring, I work to build relationships with classes through this process.

Next, we collaborate and add details together as a class to this presentation. Our brainstorming methods, inside jokes, and collaborations sit in this presentation for anyone to access. We consult the presentation throughout our semester together.

Finally, as we continue with this first writing assignment, I am sure to reference the presentation that we were building together.

Explain to students the power of prewriting and brainstorming with this fun writing activity.

Establish prewriting habits.

Students think you’re giving them extra work with prewriting, so stress that you’re not: You’re saving them time. Writing assignments for high school students should allow for brainstorming, thinking, and prewriting. I model the writing process with students with a fun activity that allows everyone to participate.

Overwhelmed writers give up on their papers, or they become increasingly frustrated, less willing to work. Prewriting provides a concrete reference point. It gets all the ideas out in the open. It gives students a direction, and it provides you with an opportunity to restructure a paper and provide feedback before students devote tons of time.

Concerning prewriting, a key aspect I acknowledge is the amount of strong ideas from students, their critical thinking. This is true! Teens have interesting perspectives; getting those ideas on paper in a sensible fashion becomes the obstacle. Lots of modeling on my part builds strong prewriting habits in classes. Plus, in the real world, every prewriting method is different for every person.

Any format (web, outline, list) works, and I allow students to choose which format works best for them. (This is a bonus for teaching older students!) If you’re assigning points for prewriting, clarify that effort is the goal: It needn’t be neat or perfect.

I ask students to list what each body paragraph’s focus will be. Then I read over those ideas with the students. We decide if ideas are too similar, out of focus with the topic, or are illogical. With a new class, conference early. Not only do these conferences allow for the prewriting and organizing of a paper, but they also allow me to focus on difficult areas.

Common grammar errors can hurt high school writing lessons.

Identify errors.

What are the most egregious errors? Right away, I don’t jump into difficult concepts like parallelism, but rather, I focus on grammar errors that are causing breakdowns in papers—confusing parts. In some high school classes, I’ve had to review confusing words along with possessives. That’s rare, but most often I cover sentence problems such as fragments, run-ons, and comma splices at the start of the year. As we work through those first papers, I target where students struggle.

The assignments to help students identify and correct these errors vary. I’ve never used the same exact material in the exact order from year to year. Each class has unique needs and learning styles. Some classes will never need to cover misplaced modifiers; others will need grammar sorts and direct instruction to understand the problem of punctuation, parallelism, and on.

Address those reoccurring problems that multiple students face. This not only will provide direction for grammar and language instruction, but will also show students they are capable of improving in measurable ways.

Writing graphic organizers make a great writing activity for high school students.

Strengthen the core.

The core of papers, the nuts and bolts, the thesis, introduction, conclusion, and such will probably need strengthened. Older students know these terms, but they might not realize the expectations yet. As they mature and their writing develops, as they experiment with types of writing, those elements should mature too. A thesis written in fifth grade should differ from one written in tenth grade.

With the first writing assignment, students might benefit from samples and mentor texts. Writing alongside students helps too.

Introductions and conclusions should relate and wrap a paper together. Write with students, and model the struggles you face. Provide varying ways to develop these elements. If I don’t use graphic organizers , I will create anchor charts. Then, we as a class have developed expectations and can reference that chart.

Put out a newsletter.

Add writing to a newsletter, utilize your school’s social media, or email coworkers with published pieces. Ask everyone to print out a finished piece of writing, add to a colored piece of paper, and fasten it to a bulletin board. An authentic audience for writing activities is a good way to showcase work and encourage reluctant writers.

In real life, polished drafts have an audience. Any time you can get your writers’ work in front of others, you are providing an authentic experience.

Writing is difficult. Some people will never care for writing. Encouragement can begin immediately with a new class. I begin building relationships immediately, am intentional in incorporating encouragement into conversations, and encourage classes to own writing.

Another trick is to keep this first paper so that as class progresses, you can return it to students on a particularly rough day. You know: the days when multiple students confide that they can’t do it, that they are terrible writers, that grammar is the devil’s spawn.

Show them that they are good writers, that they have grown, and that their writing assignments have improved. Mark great examples for your writing lesson plans ! The process will come together for you and them.

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complete writing unit for high school students

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22 Drawing and Painting Lessons & Activities for High School

22 drawing and painting lessons & activities for high school.

These art related lessons and activities teach and demonstrate drawing and painting, along with some tips and instructions, targeted for high school students. This 58-page Water Color Painting Tips and Tricks guide is particularly helpful and instructive. Also included at the end of this list, are two documents on wood carving. You can also check out all of our Art related pages here .

A Fork in the Road Painting Project Agamograph Challenge Art Nouveau Botanical Drawing, Art Lesson Color Mixing – Some General Guidelines Color Pencil Tips Drawing Tools Drawing Value Scales Drawing Warm up Drawing with Colored Pencils Egg Shading Fauvism How to Hold a Pencil Light Capturing Paper Designs Scratch Art Project Sets of Lines Sketchbook Assignments The History of Cubism Two Point Perspective Water Color Painting Tips and Tricks, 58 pages Woodcarving Tips and Tricks Woodcarving Totem Pole Project

22 Drawing and Painting Lessons & Activities for High School

– love learning -your best ed lessons guide, Scott

30 Art Lessons, Activities and Projects - All Grades

A link to this video might help students understand use of sketchbooks.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting did a short video focusing on my sketchbooks. It was released on YOUTUBE and can be viewed with this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T6S8JGlrWE

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25 Alternative Assessment Ideas

Test outside the box.

25 of the Best Alternative Assessment Ideas - Book Report Alternatitives

Sometimes the best way to check for understanding is with a good old-fashioned paper-and-pencil test. But more often than not, there are assessments that are more fun and interesting, and just as effective, to give your students the opportunity to show what they know. Here are 25 alternative assessment ideas that will tap into students’ different learning styles and get you the information you need to make sure they’re learning.

1. Plot a family tree.

Highlight the relationships and connections between individuals by filling in a family tree. For example, have students plot out the relationships between characters in a story, the important players in a historical event, or the family lines of greek mythology.

2. Conduct an interview.

Instead of answering multiple-choice questions about a topic, why not tell the story through an eyewitness account? For example, if you are studying the Montgomery Bus Boycott, have students write an interview with Rosa Parks about what happened. Or better yet, have two students collaborate and then perform the interview together.

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3. Create an infographic.

Explaining a concept through a visual representation definitely demonstrates that students have a clear understanding. Infographics take the most important information and present it in a clear, memorable way. Click here to check out examples from WeAreTeachers.

4. Write a how-to manual.

They say that teaching someone else about a concept requires a greater degree of understanding. With this in mind, have students write a short manual explaining a process or concept, step by step. For example, how to annotate a short story, how to conduct an experiment, or how to solve a math problem.

5. Take a virtual shopping trip.

Test your students’ proficiency of adding and subtracting money with a practical application. For example, give each student an imaginary budget of $100 to spend on back-to-school supplies. Provide them with sales flyers and have them write up what they will fill their cart with. Make sure to tell them they must spend as much as possible and give them a range of items to buy, for example 15–25 items.

6. Use two modalities.

Let younger students explain a concept in two ways—with words and a picture. Have students fold a piece of paper in half and draw a picture on top and explain the concept in words on the bottom of the page. For example, have them explain and illustrate the life cycle of a butterfly.

7. Make an ABC book.

This is a fun way for students to show what they know in a creative way. Have students create a mini book with an illustrated cover and write one letter of the alphabet on each page. They will record one fact on the topic per letter/page. A few potential ideas: animal study, biography study, math vocabulary words.

8. Fashion a mobile.

Instead of writing a boring essay, have students showcase their knowledge in a three-dimensional way. Different facts about the topic are written on separate cards, attached to yarn, and hung from a plastic hanger. For example, a story map (setting, characters, conflict); parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives); science concepts (the phases of the moon); math concepts (shapes and angles).

9. Create a pamphlet.

Students demonstrate everything they know about a topic with a colorful pamphlet that includes facts and illustrations. Possible topics: an animal study, branches of government, or an author study.

10. Present opposite points of view.

Have students demonstrate that they fully understand the main arguments for and against a modern issue, such as what restrictions, if any, should be placed on stem cell research or whether athletes should be allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs. Ask them to present facts and statistics that support both sides.

11. Work on a STEM challenge.

Consider assigning projects that challenge students to use every step of the engineering process, such as the egg drop challenge or cardboard boat racing . (Note: mini versions of cardboard boats can be raced in plastic pools.)

12. Write a persuasive letter.

Students have to fully understand the merits of a position before they can persuade someone to adopt that same point of view. One way to demonstrate this is by writing a persuasive letter. For example, write a letter to the school board explaining why mandatory recycling and composting in every school would help the environment.

13. Create a concept map.

A concept map visually represents relationships between concepts and ideas. Test students’ understanding by having them fill in a prepared concept map or create one from scratch. Simple versions created by hand can do the trick, or go high tech with Lucidchart , an add-on for Google Docs.

14. Create a budget.

Have students demonstrate their proficiency with percentages by drawing up an imaginary budget. For example, let them choose their starting income and provide them with a list of expenses they must account for. Once they balance their budget, challenge them to figure out what percentage each category takes up.

15. Put out a WANTED poster.

Create an old-fashioned wanted poster for a character from a story or a historical figure. Have students describe the character using facts, figures, and a description.

16. Produce a multimedia, interactive poster.

The fun, low-cost, high-tech tool Glogster allows students to combine images, graphics, audio, video, and text on one digital canvas in order to demonstrate their understanding of concepts and ideas.

17. Create an artifact.

Turn your classroom into a museum and have your students create artifacts that demonstrate their knowledge. For example, types of indigenous dwellings, devices that use a spring, or models of a part of the body.

18. Coordinate a living history museum.

Make characters from history come alive. Students can dress like heroes, inventors, authors, etc. and prepare mini biographies. Invite guests to come in and learn from students.

19. Design a travel brochure.

Great for a geography study. For example, a state brochure could include maps, the state flower, flag, motto, and more.

20. Draw a comic strip.

Allow students to tap into their inner cartoonist and test their knowledge with comic strips. Set clear expectations for length and content beforehand. Possible uses: book reports, retelling of a historical event, or science concepts, like the water cycle.

21. Create a collage.

Using old magazines, let students create a collage of images that demonstrates their understanding of a concept. For example, math concepts, like equalities, balanced equations, and volume; science concepts, like weather, life cycles, and chemical reactions; and English concepts, like word roots, conjugations, and punctuation.

22. Dramatize.

Have students write a play or monologue that was inspired by a moment in history, summarizes a story, or explains a concept.

23. Write a pitch.

Have students write a pitch for a Netflix series starring characters from an important moment or period of time (the American Revolution, the Civil Rights era) or follows the theme of a book. Encourage students to be inspired by subplots or to tell the story from a different character’s point of view.

24. Gather real-world examples.

Ask students to demonstrate their understanding by gathering evidence of concepts in everyday life. For example, geometry (angles, shapes), grammar (sentence structure, use of punctuation), science (condensation, refraction), or social studies (maps, current events).

25. Dream up a board game.

At the end of a unit, allow students to team up and create a board game as a culminating project. For example, at the end of an economics unit, have them create a game about supply and demand or a game about wants and needs.

Do you have more alternative assessment ideas that you use in your classroom? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Also, check out 5 Unconventional Final Exams to Give Your Students.

Collage of types of assessments in education, including formative and summative

Formative, Summative, and More Types of Assessments in Education

All the best ways to evaluate learning before, during, and after it happens. Continue Reading

Different Types of Essay Assignments for High School Students

High school student working on an essay assignment on a laptop

These popular essay assignments enable high school students to explore the ins and outs of various types of writing.

In high school, essay practice is key to helping students fine-tune critical thinking skills and build writing fluency. For both efficacy and engagement reasons, the greater the variety of writing activities , the better. Each of these essay exercises for high schoolers involves a different kind of thinking and a different approach to writing, ensuring students develop well-rounded writing skill-sets :

1. Poetry analysis essay assignments

Poetry analysis assignments ask students to break down a poem and study it closely in order to draw conclusions about its meaning. Doing so not only sharpens student reasoning and explanation skills, but deepens student understanding of how writers use language to communicate ideas about their experiences.

For many high schoolers, poetry analysis is among the most intimidating types of essay assignments. As such, it’s often worthwhile to use pre-writing activities that guide students through several readings of a poem, each time focusing on a specific element. Here’s one common approach for arriving at an interpretation of a poem:

Read: Ask students to read through the poem carefully, noting any immediate thoughts that come to mind.
Build understanding: Have students read the poem again. Then, ask them to answer guiding questions to get a better sense of what the poem is about. What impact does the title of the poem have on readers? What objects, people, or events are described in the poem? Is there a clear speaker narrating the poem, and, if so, what is their tone?
Deepen understanding: Have students read the poem a third time—this time out loud. Ask them to focus on the features of the poem that stand out to them. What sounds (such as rhyme or rhythm) are prominent in the poem? How does descriptive language like imagery or metaphors impact how readers feel about the poem? Does the poem’s structure affect its meaning or message?

Completing a pre-writing activity like this will ensure students feel prepared to craft an essay that articulates a coherent analysis of a poem.

2. Rhetorical analysis essay assignments

Rhetorical analysis helps students see how an author uses language strategically to achieve their purpose. Authors make deliberate rhetorical choices to make their text effective, persuasive, or moving depending on whether they’re trying to teach their audience about an issue, persuade them to take action, or change their feelings on a subject (or any number of other goals). By analyzing these choices, students become familiar with strategies like figurative language, varied sentence structures, and logical arguments that they can incorporate into their own writing.

Rhetorical analysis essay assignments should guide students through the process of teasing out an author’s purpose, identifying the author’s rhetorical choices, crafting a thesis, and defending that thesis. To get students thinking along the right lines, try asking them any (or all) of these questions:

Does the author structure the text in an interesting or purposeful way?
Does the author try to seem trustworthy or likable to the audience?
Does the author use evidence or logical reasoning to convince the audience that something is true?
Does the author make any notable word choices (like using emotionally charged words or memorable descriptive language)?
Does the author use interesting or unusual sentence structures or vary sentence length to grab the audience’s attention?

3. Expository essay assignments

Another common type of high school essay practice, expository writing assignments ask students to explain, describe, or expose interesting ideas about a subject. Doing so helps students think critically about the world around them and develop a deep enough understanding of a topic that they’re able to lead their audience through it. Expository essay assignments involve conducting research about a subject, gathering relevant evidence to support a position, and using this information to formulate a central idea or argument.

As with any type of essay assignment for high school students, you should show your class how to approach each section of an expository essay:

For their introductions , students must learn how to grab readers with a hook and connect this hook to their thesis using a bridge.
For their body paragraphs, they must make sure that each piece of evidence and explanation adds a new point and supports their topic sentence and thesis.
For their conclusions , they must learn how to succinctly restate their key points without repeating language verbatim.

Using NoRedInk for high school essay practice

NoRedInk’s comprehensive online writing curriculum includes all these types of essay assignments for high school students (and more). Our Guided Drafts , Quick Writes , tutorials, and pre-teaching resources help you build student writing, critical thinking, and research skills. Our personalized, scaffolded approach makes it easy to ensure that each student receives the support they need to learn at their own pace.

Lillian oversees email communications at NoRedInk. Prior to NoRedInk, she spent over four years at PBLWorks, an education nonprofit focused on project-based learning. A proud product of public education, Lillian holds both an MA in Education and a BA in Art History from the University of Massachusetts.

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6 High school open house ideas

In this guide

School showcase
Interactive museum
Art exhibit

In 2016, my school district screened the documentary Most Likely to Succeed in our auditorium for educators, students, parents and community members. Within weeks, I was down in San Diego, CA visiting the school at the center of the film, High Tech High . I was able to speak with teachers, students, and administrators about how they were reimagining learning.

One of the biggest takeaways from both the documentary and my visit was how connected student projects were to the larger community. Assignments were not just turned in for a grade. Students performed and presented projects for authentic audiences as a core part of their learning process.

This emphasis on active learning was designed to create more meaning for the learners by providing a concrete application of the skills and content being developed through the curriculum. It was really exciting to see how engaged students were in subjects like math and history, which can turn a lot of kids off.

I was recently at a family gathering and one of my relatives was discussing how he nearly dropped out of high school because he was struggling in math so much. Today, he is a welder for the oil industry and he told me how often he finds himself correcting the calculations of the designers and engineers while on the job.

His least favorite subject in school has become one of the ways he stands out in his profession. Connecting the subject to a personal interest along with the need to effectively use it in a high stakes setting allows him to take vague concepts and develop concrete understandings.

Students involved in sports or the performing arts regularly experience participating in real settings with real audiences. But what about students that are not involved in these types of programs? How can we create similar learning experiences for them to make the process more meaningful?

The following open house ideas are a great way to connect students with authentic audiences and build skills that develop a greater sense of confidence.

1) School showcase

Most schools do not do a great job of advertising the amazing work that they do on a daily basis. As a result, many of the news stories about education or schools tend to be negative in nature. A whole school showcase is a great opportunity to start telling your story and connect to the people that matter the most – your community.

One of the best uses for a school showcase is for new or prospective students. As a high school, invite 8th graders and their parents to check out what being a student at your school is all about. Let guests tour your facilities in action and highlight the superpowers of your school.

Using a catapult in an AP physics classroom, listening to a mock debate in social studies, getting a headshot taken in the photography studio, tasting fresh baked cookies in a culinary class, or picking fresh vegetables from the sustainable garden.

These experiences will not only get families excited to attend your school, it will also get them talking to other members of the community about all of the amazing things happening there.

The best school showcases will include current students demonstrating what the classes or programs are all about and are available to answer any questions. It is one thing to hear from the people that work at a school but the message becomes even more powerful when it is coming directly from learners with first hand experience.

This idea sure beats an assistant principal talking through a 43 slide PowerPoint presentation in the auditorium, right?

2) Interactive museum

During a family road trip a few summers ago, we stopped at the Manzanar Historic Park Site to help our kids understand Japanese internment during WWII. As we approached the site, I began to feel a bit of guilt because I remembered how much I hated visiting museums as a kid.

This experience was very different from the museums of my childhood though and each of us found ourselves incredibly immersed in the information and exhibits. The kids were able to touch things and explore personal narratives of individuals who lived in that camp. As we drove away, the questions and conversation about that dark period in American history continued.

Before we even got home, I knew I had to try and replicate some of the elements found at Manzanar in an upcoming student project. Last year, our U.S. History and Design students launched our first interactive museum.

Each group was responsible for building a hands-on display to teach visitors about an important aspect of American history. We invited other classes, administrators, and parents to attend. Not only did this event help demonstrate how our class differed from traditional history classes, students were able to get powerful feedback on their work by seeing people directly engage with their projects.

This is also a great way to involve students in the marketing and publicity of an event. I had teams of students create a variety of advertisements from printed wall banners to short promotional videos to email messages. It was so successful that I think a lot of students forgot that they were getting a grade for their final project during the process.

3) Market day

So I have to admit that I have a personal advantage when it comes to this concept because I teach an Entrepreneurship class and all of my students are required to start a business. We hold an Entrepreneurship Fair at the end of the year for students and the community to attend.

What we have discovered though, is that this idea works for a variety of students and programs on our campus. Ultimately, it is a great way to show off anyone who is creating and building things. Plus, expanding the scope makes the event larger and more engaging for visitors.

We have artists selling paintings and jewelry, photographers marketing their services, cooks sharing samples of their delicacies, and engineers showing off their solar powered vehicles.

Each student or business is provided a table and they decide on the best setup to attract attention and connect with potential customers. This event helps students build important communication skills and get more comfortable with selling their work, ideas, and talents.

4) Workshops

Students get so accustomed to their role as a learner in school that it can create a relatively passive mindset when it comes to how they approach their education. This idea is meant to flip the script and turn the learners into teachers.

If you want to master something, teach it. Richard Feynman

I first started using this idea as a way to help students get more comfortable talking with each other in class. I let them choose any topic they were interested in and then create a 10 minute “lesson” to teach a small group of their peers about it. We’ve had presentations about how to putt a golf ball, make matcha, and knit a scarf.

Workshops are great for upperclassmen and women to teach newer students organizational or academic information critical to success in high school. The beauty of this setup is that both the teachers (upperclassmen and women) and learners experience important benefits.

For me, I still love giving students the option to choose whatever topic they want for a workshop. Not only do I get to learn new and sometimes random things, it is a powerful way to communicate to students that we value their interests since most of the time in school they are focusing on topics other people decided for them.

If you are able to open up your workshops to parents and community members, be ready for a transformative experience. Observing adults learn from passionate, young individuals is amazing evidence for how your school is helping create the future leaders of society.

5) Art exhibit

This idea is an easy one if you teach an art class but even if you do not, this one can still work because art and design can be included in any content area. Turn whatever space you have available into an art gallery and have students display their work.

The exhibits can be open at lunch for other students and staff members if there are major time constraints or you can hold it after school so parents can attend as well. Either way, make sure each student has a name card and artist’s statement next to their work for viewers to see.

A fun addition I like to do is give each visitor 5 circle stickers or tickets to vote on their favorite work. The stickers can be placed right next to the work as a quick and visible way to see which pieces are connecting with viewers the most. If you prefer more anonymity, have visitors write the name of their favorite artist on the back of a ticket and place it in a box near the exit.

I have found this idea works much better when you work with other teachers so that the exhibit has more participants. Even if the subject matter or theme is different, collaborating will make it easier to organize and market the event.

6) Wax museum

I stole this idea from my own kids’ 4th grade teacher. After seeing both of my children participate in their historical wax museum, I decided to give it a try at the high school level.

Each student is assigned or selects a person or character to research. Then, they create a 60-90 second speech from the perspective of that individual. During the open house, guests walk up and “press the button” on each wax figure to make them start speaking.

Because this activity can get loud, I highly recommend choosing a large space or somewhere outdoors, if possible so it is easy to hear each presenter.

This idea can be used in a variety of subjects. In my history classes, I allow students to select a lesser known figure from the past who they feel derives more recognition for their contributions to society. I have also seen English Language Arts teachers use a wax museum to explore characters from a book they are reading in class.

Something to remember when it comes to designing an open house for a real audience is to recognize that it is not simply an opportunity to ‘showcase’ learning. Instead, it needs to be designed as part of the actual learning process. The presentation and interactions with viewers are part of the skills being developed.

As Dr. Caitlin Tucker discusses in her article, What is problematic about teachers being the only audience for student work? , connecting students with authentic audiences increases motivation and engagement, cultivates real-world skills, and provides authentic feedback.

Whether it is a sales pitch to a potential customer, demonstrating your value during a job interview, or explaining a diagnosis to a concerned patient, students need opportunities to practice communicating complex ideas in a confident manner.

Open houses are a great way for students to develop competencies that transcend typical curriculum goals while also advertising the amazing work that your school is doing. It really is a win-win situation.

Reuell, P. (2019, September 4). Study shows that students learn more when taking part in classrooms that employ active-learning strategies . Harvard Gazette. Retrieved June 21, 2024, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-that-students-learn-more-when-taking-part-in-classrooms-that-employ-active-learning-strategies/
Tucker, C. (2023, March 8). Shifting From an Audience of One to an Authentic Audience – Dr . Catlin Tucker. Retrieved June 19, 2024, from https://catlintucker.com/2023/03/shifting-to-an-authentic-audience/

Nick Schwab

Learning Experience Designer

Nick combines his background in psychology, education and design to create physical and digital experiences that empower, engage, and excite learners. His passion lies in constantly developing new learning pathways for students that challenge the status quo in education.

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A Strategic Approach to Seating Arrangements in High School

Which seating arrangement works best—assigned, random, or something else? Here’s an idea from someone who has tried them all.

Photo of high school students entering classroom

Ever ponder why it’s so hard to come up with the best seating arrangement for any given class? If you’ve done the actual math, you’ve determined that it’s improbable just by chance. If you haven’t, then you should know that in a class of 30 students with 30 seats, probability tells you there are 30! (30 factorial, or 2.6 x 10 32 ) different ways they could be seated—more ways if you are like many teachers who have over 30 students per class. Even if you’re fortunate enough to have only 15 young minds to teach in a class with one seat each, there are still over a trillion (15!) ways to arrange them.

Although only one of those many outcomes can be the best , many outcomes could be pretty good, but that also means there’s the potential for a lot of problematic arrangements for both you and your students.

So what’s a teacher to do with so many possible outcomes—just throw your hands up and let the students choose? Leave it to random chance and hope for something reasonably good? Dedicate lots of time and thought with a more strategic and intentional approach? After decades of teaching and years of mentoring, my answers to these questions would be: not a chance, still no, and yep! Here’s a look at each of those approaches.

Student Choice?

On the first day of school in many buildings or classrooms, you’re likely to overhear (or maybe even say), “There are no assigned seats—sit wherever you want.” This, of course, is not what actually happens. Students with the most status, or bullies, or those who are early, or those whose friends got there and saved them a space, might get to sit where they want, and the rest end up sitting someplace they may never have chosen if given the chance.

If you then never create a seating chart, this imbalance is repeated on a daily basis. If you later use self-selected seats to generate a seating chart, what frequently happens is that some groups or areas work, while others do not. Then, to break up the problem groups, you also have to break up those groups or areas that aren’t a problem—not great for student-to-student relationships or for teacher-to-student relationships.

This took me over a decade to realize on my own, and then I finally recognized that my frustrations with my students’ choices were really my own frustrations over not learning from my mistakes. Of course, their social priorities did not match my educational priorities. So, not a chance I’d keep using self-selection with their still-developing adolescent frontal lobes.

Random Assignment?

How about using randomness to solve some of the problems created by choice seating? Regardless of class size, if you run repeated random groupings of three or four students, you will see that more often than not, you will end up with quite a few well-mixed groups but also one or two “stronger” groups and one or two “weaker” groups. This is both problematic and not your original intent.

If you’re relying on high-tech random seating chart generators or even low-tech methods like drawing names for extended seating assignments, especially if those assignments are in groups, you are likely making things harder for both yourself and many of your students. So, a randomized approach for your day-to-day base seating? Still a no. Save randomization for short, frequent visible learning opportunities (as in Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12 ) or other more appropriate situations.

Strategic Seating?

An early investment in strategic seating based on intentionality and data can pay big dividends. This method worked well for me with Biology I (a required course for all ninth-grade students when I taught it), Marine Biology (a semester elective with students ranging from ocean-loving geeks to those whose reply to “Why did you elect to take this class?” was “I didn’t—my counselor put me in here”), and AP Statistics, which is where I first experimented with it.

Here’s what prompted the more strategic and intentional approach on my part many years ago. In my first few years, I assumed that the junior and senior AP Statistics students coming to my class after taking AP Calculus, Pre-calculus, or Trigonometry the previous year would be mature and motivated enough to choose where they wanted to sit, and of course I was wrong, because their choices were still more along the lines of social reasons than academic ones.

This frequently resulted in table groups of four based on friends from their previous math classes. The common result was the Calc groups soared, the Pre-calc groups did well enough, and the Trig groups struggled—definitely not the result I was striving to achieve.

So I employed data about each student’s previous math class, other academic performance, and grade level to create groups that had one or two from each course in them and used that as my starting seating chart on the first day of school. I eventually did something similar with my Biology and Marine Biology students by looking at their past academic performance as well as other data such as individualized education programs and 504s.

This initial setup took a lot of time but usually paid off fairly quickly because I spent way less time having to deal with the problems that nearly always resulted from choice or random seating. Additionally, I used that data for shuffling for new groups at the end of a time period such as a unit. Depending on how a given class was proceeding, I would get data from the students after we had successfully established routines for success.

From these strategic seating arrangements, I could orchestrate a variety of ways to quickly shuffle groups for sharing information, teaming for quizzes , tackling new tasks, or building classroom community. So, yep!—strategic and intentional (and initially very time-consuming) seating was my go-to for the last couple of decades of my career. If you aren’t using seating charts at all and need some more convincing, this article may help.

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