37 awesome writing prompts

You really need to go give Luke Neff some love. Buy some of his stuff. Write him a nice note. Maybe some sort of personal gift? Ya gotta do something. The guy is awesome.

Why awesome?

Because he’s has created a ton of awesome writing prompts that you can use with your social studies / history kids. And . . . he’s sharing them with us.

55 Interesting Ways to Support Writing in the Classroom

Reading and writing have always been important pieces of quality social studies instruction. Without these skills embedded into what your kids are doing, history and social studies classes quickly become nothing more than exercises in rote memorization.

Reading and writing provide a path to critical thinking and problem solving. And with the Common Core tsunami already crashing down, any helpful ideas for incorporating them into instruction can help us keep our heads above water.

So when I recently ran across Tom Barret’s handy 55 Interesting Ways to Support Writing in the Classroom Google Doc, I jumped on it. It is simply what it says it is – 55 ways that you can integrate writing as part of your instruction. And while it’s not laser-focused on social studies, you’ll find some great ideas in the list.

The cool thing?

Because the list is a Google Doc, it is editable and will continue to grow as teachers add their own ideas to it.

The second cool thing?

Tom Barret has a whole list of helpful “Interesting Ways” to explore. In addition to an Interesting Ways to Support Reading in the Classroom doc, the list includes ideas for iPads, cell phones, Google tools, video games, QR Codes, and other cool tools.

Head over, grab some great ideas, and be sure to add your own.