The Character-O-Matic is a writing tool that helps students to create new characters. In this lesson, students will use it to create a character profile that reflects their own identies.

Using a place with personal meaning, students will learn a strategy for getting over the hurdle of beginning the writing process.

Leslie Margolis invites students to consider their own personhood and what determines or defines it with two short prompts.

These 10 prompts ask students to browse the 826 Digital Student Writing Gallery for writing inspiration.

Students revisit powerful memories to generate personal stories filled with heart.

Students enter a Writing Laboratory, no lab coats required, and use methods of observation to embark on their writing process.

Students create an identity chart and write about parts of their identity most salient to them.

Engage young writers of any age at home with this collection of 826 Digital writing prompts and activities.

This writing prompt from author Lisa Ko invites students to explore the impact of social movements by envisioning and writing from an ideal future.

This Spark uses a popular improv game to show students the value of their ideas and the importance of keeping an open mind while writing.

This activity prompts students to use words related to community and identity to reframe ancestral stories of resistance, growth, and survival.

Author bios offer students another opportunity to express themselves through writing and to feel like a real author. This Spark walks students through the process of writing one.

Author and activist P. Carl asks students to write dialogue that captures two distinct and opposing voices, crafting a scene of action and discord.

This poetry prompt from Rachel Eliza Griffiths asks students to consider the ordinary in their lives—then write a poem that celebrates those ordinary objects and figures.

Writers have the power to make choices about the words and structures they use in their writing. In this Spark, students will learn how to wield that power with purpose.

How is a scene different from a summary? In this Spark, students will explore the answer to that question and put both techniques into practice.

Students recall “last times” in their lives and revisit the depth of their experience through writing.

Usually, an ode is written in celebration, but this Spark asks students to write an anti-ode—a poem about something they can’t stand!

Students consider the influence that labels hold and write poetry to become empowered to describe themselves however they want.

Students consider perspectives of activists speaking up against racism and police brutality following the death of George Floyd and use imagery to capture protest scenes in writing.

Writing can be a powerful tool when working through feelings of grief, sadness, or anger. This Spark creates an intentional opportunity for youth to write and speak about what is on their minds.

A hauntingly good pair of prompts! Students will reconsider the purpose of ghosts by either describing a haunted setting or writing from the perspective of a misunderstood ghost.

An effective writing prompt about a significant threshold.

To jumpstart their own poems, students take inspiration from the poetry of the others.

This poetry prompt from Ada Limón invites students to consider a personal connection to an animal.

Students will write a personal narrative where they describe themselves as a place. Not a specific place, but all the things a "place" consists of.

In this Spark, students will mine their home and their habits for story and personal essay ideas.

At a time of rising book bans, The New York Public Library invites all teens to reflect on the essential freedom to read.

This activity prompts students to write words unspoken, in letters undelivered.

In this Spark, students will learn more about conducting interviews and practice by interviewing a classmate.

What lives inside a word? Find out how to trace connections between two dissimilar words with this playful Spark from award-winning poet Aracelis Girmay.

With this pair of prompts, students look to the past and future for writing inspiration.

In this Spark, students will explore two taboo emotions, desire and fear, by mapping where these feelings dwell in their bodies and using tactile language to describe their impact.

Students plot significant memories on a timeline in this reflective writing activity.

In this Spark, students will learn more about voice: what it is exactly, and how to name the elements of it.

Make space for creativity in nonfiction! Students will play with traditional nonfiction formats with these two writing prompts from Kelly Jensen, writer and editor.

Whether students write to process, to remember, to imagine, or to heal, this collection of prompts asks students to recognize how their world has changed in response to COVID-19.

Students discuss the 2021 inaugural poem by Amanda Gorman and write their own poems in response to "The Hill We Climb."

Students draw inspiration from a real or fictional location and use this sense of place to develop an in-setting document.

In this Spark, students will explore the many ways you can connect to a poem.

This Spark provides students with the opportunity to get to know their classmates by sharing personal stories about a specific topic.

A pair of prompts that invites students to consider how time, location, and dialogue can be used to construct a scene and build meaning.

By combining two classic games, students will learn how storytelling and art can build community or help them break through writer’s block.

Daniel Ehrenhaft asks students to consider perspective in a piece of their writing with this reflective spark.