Stretch Your Writing Genes
Comic Relief
Encourage your artists to draw and write a comic strip. If they are a writer and not an artist, join friends or family members together for a fame of comic relief.
Poetry Plot
Look for words, phrases, etc. from magazines, photographs, etc. and build a poem using your findings. It stretches the creative juices.
Chain Reaction
Start one person with a short writing prompt…it could be a word, a phrase etc. Then designate a time frame, such as one minute of writing. Pass around to each family member so they can add on to the story. Share when everyone has participated. This works well for parties.
Acrostic Fun
Pick a noun that names something you love such as animals, boating, etc. and then make a poem of sorts using adjectives to describe each letter. This is a great one for classrooms.
What IF?
Allow each participant to come up with a what if scenario and write it on a piece of paper. Add all the questions into a bowl and each persondraw one that is not their own and share their answer. It’s a great way to break the ice for a get-together.
Session 2
Elementary
1. The most disgusting bug is one that…
2. The food I could eat everyday for the rest of my life…
3. When I feel frustrated, I need to be…
Middle School
1. If I wrote my own book, it would be titled…
2. The perfect way to skip school would be…
3. When my emotions feel like a roller coaster ride, I need to…
High School
1. If I could tell my younger self only one piece of advice, it would be…
2. The book I dreaded reading but ended up impacting me was…
3. When I think about my future, the thing that scares me the most…
Session 1
Elementary Writing Prompts
I get scared when…
My favorite book is…
If I had three wishes, they would be…
Middle School Writing Prompts
If I could change one thing about me, it would be…
Rainy days make me feel…
I believe magic is…
High School Writing Prompts
If you could write a letter to your younger self, it would say…
My dream vacation would be to…
What if you were able to communicate with animals?
Cynthia Rylant
Curling up near the fireplace, wrapped in my favorite fleecy blanket, I sigh with contentment. Even in my forties, my favorite books are still picture books written for the very young. Maybe it’s the simplicity or the often beautiful, soft imagery that accompanies the words, but it is a feeling of being home.
Cynthia Rylant remains one of my favorite authors who chose to write for the younger generations or in my case, the young at heart. She didn’t grow up intending to write, but once she started college English courses, her fate was sealed.
Cynthia grew up in the coal mining area of West Virginia. She was not raised near a library nor had much money. But she did love comic books and Nancy Drew mysteries that she could obtain from a local five-and-dime store.
At twenty-three years of age, she picked up the Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall and fell in love with that type of writing. Never having met a real writer, she began sending off her stories to publishers’ addresses. When I Was Young in the Mountains was the first narrative that was accepted. She is now the author of more than 100 books.
She obtained a degree in library science from Kent State as a foundation for a job but her dream was to become a writer and that she did. She worked to raise her son alone while working on her stories. She couldn’t imagine only writing one style of book, so she bounced around different ideas and completed a variety of written narratives.
Some of Cynthia’s most beloved characters are Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby, and Poppleton. Having written stand-alone novels, series, poetry, and picture books, she has given us a lifetime of stories to enjoy.
My favorite of her picture books is The Birdhouse (1997) which tells the tale of an orphan girl who builds a relationship with an old woman. While trying to understand the mystery and magic of how birds seem to flock to her, she finds an unexpected home.
Cynthia Rylant, BookPage, interview by Linda M. Castellitto, May 2009,
https://bookpage.com/interviews/8006-cynthia-rylant-childrens
Writing
“Sometimes writing without punctuation just shows how our hearts flow words without needing the space to breathe.” -Katie Cummins