Creative Writing Activities To Liven Up Your Writing Class from Oxford University Press

 Writing tasks in lessons often focus on exam preparation or writing full-length texts. However, there are many other ways to make writing lessons engaging, such as incorporating creative writing activities. 

Creative writing activities not only allow learners to apply their lexical and grammatical knowledge more freely but also encourage them to think imaginatively and express themselves through their own ideas. 

Let’s look at some fun and engaging creative writing teaching ideas to give you inspiration in your lessons.

Visuals as story starters

Visuals can be a powerful tool to spark creativity in students. Using images as a starting point for writing can push them to use their imaginations and put themselves in a variety of situations. 

• Use unusual or funny images: Think about what type of unusual photos you’d like to use and have a search online. You could also use an AI image generation tool such as DALL-E (now incorporated into ChatGPT). 
• Show these images in class and ask students to invent a story around the situation they see. Encourage them to think about how the situation came about, what’s happening in the image, and what might happen next.
• Google Earth: Use websites like Random Street View or Google Earth. Zoom in on a random location and ask students to create a story about someone living there. 
• You could also ask students to do some research into the culture, language and lifestyles of the people in that area. This not only broadens their creative scope but also ties into global awareness projects, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

You can read more about the SDGs here. 

Mad libs variations 

Mad Libs is a classic game that can be adapted into an engaging creative writing activity. It’s great for reviewing parts of speech and encouraging creativity.

• Word categories: Prepare a list of categories (e.g., nouns, adjectives, verbs) and ask students to provide words for each of them. Divide the words among different groups, and challenge them to create stories using as many of the words as possible. The randomness of the words usually results in funny and unexpected narratives.
• Story replacement: Have groups write a short story and then pass it to another group. The second group then replaces certain words or phrases without reading the entire story. Again, there are usually funny and unusual stories generated from a task like this, and it can be a fun way to review vocabulary and grammar.

Collaborative team writing

Team writing exercises are excellent for developing students’ writing skills while encouraging teamwork and peer learning. 

• Story starters: Give each group a story starter sentence or paragraph. Set a time limit for them to continue the story before passing it on to another group. When the story has been passed to the next group, they can’t look at it, except for the last sentence of the story. The activity continues around the class. As the story passes through different hands, it will take unexpected turns, often leading to stories that don’t make sense but are entertaining for the class to read. 
• Editing for flow: Once the story in story starters has gone through several rounds, give it back to the original group. They now edit the story to ensure it flows logically. This step teaches students to revise and improve their writing.

Video narration

Incorporating video or social media is a great way to link the classroom to the outside world. 

• Silent video narration: Choose short video clips related to a topic you’ve covered in class and play them without sound. Ask students to write the narration or subtitles for the video. To add challenge, give students a specific target audience for the video.
• How-not-to videos: Assign different groups to watch various how-to videos. Then, have them create a parody how-not-to video. They write the script, prepare any necessary props, and perform the video for the class. The aim is to do the opposite of what they saw in the original video. This activity not only encourages creative writing for the script and story but also helps develop presentation skills and teamwork.

Incorporating creative writing activities into your lessons is a motivating way to get students to practise their writing skills and think outside of the box. They can use their imaginations and creativity, and work together to create a light and fun story.