Creative Writing Resource: Shared Writing Lesson

This is a customisable resource for English designed to get the creative juices flowing.

A list of random words (choice of 2 - 5) is generated and pupils are challenged to come up with ways of including all of them in a piece of collaborative writing. As the class comes up with ideas, the teacher records them by typing on the onscreen board. The work can be saved at the end of the session.

If pupils are not used to this kind of exercise, I suggest beginning with the 2 word sentence option. Challenge them to make sentences that make links between the words. You can move on to the other options in the menu as they become more confident…

Although designed for use in English classes, this resource can easily be adapted for other subjects and for whole school sessions like assemblies. It is great for CPD too (safeguarding training, for instance).

The PowerPoint file is stored in a folder with a text file named ‘words’. By replacing the words on this list by your own, the words generated on the screen can be related to any topic you like. Make sure that you keep the text file and the PowerPoint file together, however, or the nothing work.

I have included a separate folder with three extra word lists (summer, adjectives, and synonyms for ‘said’). If you decide to use them, you need to rename them as ‘words’ and swap them with the original file in the main folder.

You need to enable macros on your computer to use the resource, otherwise nothing will happen!