Collection Overview
Story-powered Prompts for Writing Outside
Write Out
From historical fiction or future-oriented stories, to developing characters and everything in-between, this collection brings together a range of story-powered “sparks,” or writing prompts, to encourage writing outside and in public spaces in your community. With a focus on story, each resource includes 1-3 prompts along with linked resources meant to support an exploration of a range of story forms and approaches.
These prompts have been created and curated for writers – young as well as the young at heart – by Park Rangers of the National Park Service and lead educators from the National Writing Project. They are intended to engage interests and support writers in getting started … and then to keep going! As educator Peter Elbow writes, “the most effective way … to improve your writing is to do free writing exercises regularly.”
Check out the collected resources and then head outside and find a comfortable place to be (a “sit spot“) … this might be in your backyard, on your front stoop, or in a local park or other public space. Use a notebook or a journal, a microphone and a camera, go digital or stay analog … experiment with approaches that work best for you!
Interested in sharing what you wrote? Here are a few ideas how do this whether you are outside together, at a distance from each other, and/or sharing multimodal compositions.
Also Recommended
Leaning Toward Light: A Conversation with Tess Taylor
This episode of NWP Radio features a conversation with Tess Taylor, an avid gardener, the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry, and the editor of Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens and the Hands that Tend Them.
Leading a Make Cycle in CLMOOC
A resource created to support the coaching of “Make Cycles” that were part of a professional learning offered by NWP called Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration.
On "digiship"
Chad Sansing explores the concept of “Digiship” in this classroom and supports his students in using everyday technologies and materials to rapidly prototype, share, and reiterate solutions to the problems and opportunities they see around them and in their own lives.