{"id":12278,"date":"2016-06-13T06:41:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T10:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/?p=12278"},"modified":"2025-08-24T18:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T22:21:08","slug":"writingprompts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/writingprompts\/","title":{"rendered":"21 Web Sites and Apps with Engaging Writing Prompts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/lap-top-easy-internet-business-974660\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12299\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-12299\" src=\"http:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/lap-top-974660_640-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"lap-top-974660_640\" width=\"306\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/lap-top-974660_640-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/lap-top-974660_640.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 306px) 100vw, 306px\" \/><\/a>Journals and blogs are a great way to get students to practice writing consistently. Set a daily writing prompt and give your students about 5 minutes at the beginning of class to respond in their journals or blogs. They can finish the rest of the writing during their free time and you can access once a week or every other week. To keep students engaged and really enhance their writing skills, vary the types of writings and prompts. Get students to write\u00a0short essays, emails, sms, status updates, note-taking, comics, short stories, prose, reviews, arguments, scripts, summaries, biographies, poems, headlines, news articles, and any other writing you feel will help them throughout their lives. You can also mix in some past writing prompts from exams they will have to take for ongoing practice.\u00a0Below, find websites, apps, and resources for\u00a0finding visual and multimedia writing prompts to engage your learners. For more tips, check out our webinar recording, <a href=\"http:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/teaching-writing-to-digital-learners-amtesol-webinar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Writing in the Digital Age<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">To learn more about integrating technology to support English language learners, attend our <a href=\"http:\/\/americantesol.com\/tesol-lectures.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tesol webinars<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Recommended Web Tools<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.makebeliefscomix.com\/\">Make Beliefs Comix<\/a> has over 350 free printable writing prompts in comic form.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/4thgrademsl\/quick-write-picture-prompts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quick Write<\/a> is a pinterest board full of visual writing prompts.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/corndogart.com\/\">Corn Dog Art<\/a> features many video and writing prompts.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/photoprompts.tumblr.com\/\">Photoprompts<\/a>\u00a0 is a Tumblr with visual writing prompts.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/writingprompts.tumblr.com\/\">Writing Prompts<\/a>\u00a0is a Tumblr with visual writing prompts, which are aligned with the common core.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/storytellerblog.wordpress.com\/\">Storyteller Blog<\/a> is full of writing prompts as videos or images. Some are geared for older students.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.teachingideas.co.uk\/english\/contents_writinginspiration.htm\">The\u00a0Teaching Ideas site<\/a>\u00a0has several visual writing prompts.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bogglesworldesl.com\/creativewriting.htm\">Boggles World Creative Writing<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0several creative story starters\u00a0to print that are designed for English language learners.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/oneword.com\/\">One Word<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0website, which posts one word and your students have 60 seconds to write on the website whatever comes to mind.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/exclusivetutors.com\/apps\/journaljar\/\">Journal Jar<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0free web and phone app where students click shake and\u00a0see\u00a0a question to write about.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/piclits.com\/\">PicLits<\/a>\u00a0helps you\u00a0create visual writing prompts. Students or teachers choose\u00a0an image and drag and drop words onto the image.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/plinky.com\/\">Plinky<\/a>\u00a0is a web tool which has many\u00a0question\u00a0writing prompts that ask students about their opinions on a topic.<\/li>\n<li>Writing Fix has <a href=\"http:\/\/writingfix.com\/traits_primary.htm#forkids\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">children&#8217;s writing prompt games<\/a> to learn about grammar and when completed they are prompted to write with this newfound learning.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/scholasticstory\">Scholastic Story Starters<\/a>\u00a0is an interactive website where students choose a genre then get help being a story with this genre.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.storyit.com\/Starters\/ststart.htm\">StoryIt<\/a>\u00a0has has\u00a0printables of an image with\u00a0the first paragraph of a story to help young learners craft a story.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/5card.cogdogblog.com\/\">Five Card Flickr<\/a>\u00a0will generate\u00a05 random pictures from Flickr and students can write a story in the space provided or view several other pictures.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightningbug.com.au\/index.htm\">Lightning Bug<\/a>\u00a0provides students\u00a0\u00a0with story ideas to write about or develop.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.100wordstory.org\/\">100 Word Story<\/a>\u00a0is a website for adult writers where\u00a0an image is posted and students\u00a0write\u00a0a story that is only 100 words.<\/li>\n<li>The Ted Blog has listed <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ed.ted.com\/2015\/11\/17\/21-fun-things-to-write-about-in-10-minutes-or-less\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">21 creative writing prompts<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/write-about-this-free\/id601382666?mt=8&amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D8\">Write About This<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0a free IOS app with prompts to inspire writing and students can create their own.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/app\/tell-about-this-free\/id781847911?ls=1&amp;mt=8\">Tell About This<\/a>\u00a0is a free iPad app for students to respond through their voice to picture prompts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Journals and blogs are a great way to get students to practice writing consistently. Set a daily writing prompt and give your students about 5 minutes at the beginning of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1943],"tags":[2002,812,2000,2001,1999],"class_list":["post-12278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teach-english-with-technology","tag-visual-writing-prompts","tag-writing","tag-writing-apps","tag-writing-web-tools","tag-writingprompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12278"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20895,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12278\/revisions\/20895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}