Best Creative Writing Prompts for Students

Writing is an invaluable skill that all students need to learn to realize their maximum potential in life. Writing should be a focus of their studies from an early grade, as it has been proven to improve cognitive and thinking skills, critical thinking skills, memory, and vocabulary. Many people report that writing helps them process emotions and deal with negative feelings, easing their anxiety and giving them a safe outlet for their thoughts. It’s no wonder that many teachers assign daily creative writing prompts for their students to help them develop their writing skills on various topics and subjects while reinforcing lessons learned in class. In this post, we’ll list some of the best creative writing prompts for students, separated by school levels.

Creative Writing Prompts for Elementary School

Elementary school students are just learning to write, so prompts should be simple, short, and easy to understand. Focus on themes and subjects they are already familiar with to prevent frustration, and watch their imaginations come to life!

• Describe the most beautiful flower you’ve ever seen.
• You’re a magical chef. What food do you serve at your restaurant?
• Write a story about where mountains come from.
• If you had your own Youtube channel, what would it be about?
• Aliens just invaded your town…what do you do next?
• Write a story about being a famous celebrity
• Write a story about a little girl who loves dogs

Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School

Middle schoolers can handle prompts with more complicated concepts. In fact, they’ll be offended if you give them those easy writing prompts they had in elementary school, since students at this age are craving independence, respect from adults, and to separate themselves from anything they perceive as childish. Help them explore their own feelings during this transitive time with some well-crafted creative writing prompts.

• You need to create a new way for people to get from one town to another. What do you invent?
• You can eat lunch with anyone you choose, living or dead. Who do you choose? Why?
• You must live the rest of your life as the musical instrument of your choice. What instrument do you choose? What do you do for the rest of your life?
• Write a scary story.
• Create a new video game character and write a story about one of their adventures.
• You find a magical garden in the middle of the woods. What is growing there? What happens when you pick one of the plants?
• Write a haiku
• Finish a story that begins with “Everything that could have gone wrong today, did go wrong today…”

Creative Writing Prompts for High School

High schoolers can handle thought-provoking creative writing prompts with ethical or moral dilemmas to be addressed. Don’t hold back as you make them explore their deepest thoughts and feelings, introducing real-world issues and problems for them to work through. This is their last chance to develop judgment and problem-solving skills before they head off to college or the working world, so give them difficult topics that lead to insightful, relevant responses.

• You’re an ace lawyer at a high-profile law firm and you just won the biggest case of your career…what was the case about? How did you win?
• Write a story about a person similar to you that lives in another country. How is their life the same as yours? How is it different?
• You’re a famous social media influencer. What do you make content about? Who do you want to collaborate with?
• Write a comedy with your mother as the main character.
• You fell into a time machine and went back in time 1,000 years. What is the world like?
• Find a recent news story about a problem with the nation’s economy, then write an essay about how you would fix the problem if you were in charge.
• Write a story set in Antarctica.
• Finish a story that begins with “My first day of college went really well, until I met my Physics professor…”

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