If you are looking for the best writing prompts for middle school or high school, you are at the right place! We have the 30 most creative writing prompts for teens. You can use these topics for writing assignments or journal writing. Middle school journal prompts or high school journal prompts make it easier for instructors to guide the students, and they also make it easier for students to keep a journal without having to overthink what the topic is going to be about. So, continue reading to get the best writing topics for journals and writing activities.
Creative Writing Topics for Teens
What is Writing Prompts?
Writing prompts are topics or questions that will work as a fun guide to writing or keeping a journal. If you want your students or yourself to enjoy writing and get in the habit of keeping a journal, it is most helpful to use fun writing prompts. It doesn’t have to be journals. You can use these writing topics for assignments, quick writes, brain storming, short stories, and more. The point of these topics is to make writing more fun! So, these can be helpful for middle school and high school writing classes or ESL writing activities.
Take a look at this post if you are looking for writing topics for ESL beginners.
Creative Writing Prompts for Teens Part 1
Check out the list of the 30 most creative and fun writing prompts for middle school and high school students.
- How are you different online and in real life?
- What is something that everyone else believes to be true but you don’t?
- Choose your favourite machine, and explain how it works.
- Describe snow to someone who has never seen it. Use at least five adjectives when describing snow.
- Write a letter to a person you really like (it can be a parent, friend, someone you secretly admire, or partner). Include three reasons why you like that person in the letter.
- What are ten things that make you happy and why?
- What is a good friend?
- What does it mean to be a family?
- If you could thank one person from history, who would it be and why?
- If you could go back in time and say one thing to your mother or father, what would it be and why?
- Describe the best present you’ve received. What was it, and who gave it to you?
- Write a letter to yourself in the future (one year from now).
- Would you rather be able to only read books forever or watch movies forever?
- Describe your favourite restaurant. Would you tell other people about the place?
- What was the song that you listened to the most last year (check the music streaming platform you use)? Why was it your favourite song?
Journal Writing Topics for Teens
Creative Thinking & Writing Prompts Part 2
- What accomplishment are you most proud of?
- Choose five symbols or objects that represent you. Explain how they represent you.
- What are three things you want to achieve before 30?
- If you didn’t have to worry about salary or cost of living, what do you truly want to study at university?
- Describe a perfect vacation. Where is the destination, and who would you go with?
- What is your role in your family?
- Write a poem about friendship.
- What is one reason you look forward to becoming an adult?
- Describe a time when you would have rather made a different choice. What were the options and consequences?
- What do you do when you feel depressed or lonely?
- Would you rather know everyone’s secrets or not know any secrets?
- What is your favourite subject in school, and what is your least favorite one? Explain why.
- Would you rather have many okay friends or a few very close friends?
- Explain your ideal date.
- Describe a time when you had to do detention or got grounded.
Journaling with Creative Writing Prompts for Teens
Students tend to feel pressured to comply with what is popular among teens. This affects them in a way to lose opportunities to express themselves and stay true to who they really are. This is where journaling can really help. Journaling is a great way to reflect on who you are and concentrate on yourself without having to worry about others’ opinions. No one will judge what they write in their journals. Therefore, it gives an opportunity for students to think, reflect, learn, and be creative. Most importantly, they will have fun while doing this! That’s the great part of journaling with fun writing prompts.
Not only will students have a chance to learn about themselves, but they will also have a chance to think hard about topics that they have never done in the past. That is why as an instructor, you want to provide students with some challenging topics that can also be fun! It will really help students develop thinking skills, comprehension skills, writing skills, and analyzing skills.
Journaling is a very powerful way to make your students better writers. Encourage your teen students to support their responses with details and examples. Providing students with samples could help.
Fun Writing Activities
If you are looking for additional writing activities than journaling, check out these two options.
3 Things Writing Activity
Put students in pairs and make everybody write down 3 things. Then, have them exchange the paper with their partners. With the list of 3 things provided by their partners, each student has to write a short story. It doesn’t matter if it is silly, serious, or sad. It will heavily depend on what the three things are. If you want to make this activity a little bit more challenging, have a time limit and make sure students finish their stories within that time.
Learn more about the 3 things writing activity.
Round Robin Story
This is a very fun writing activity that requires everyone to contribute to creating a story. Everyone starts a story off with, “Once upon a time….” After writing the first sentence, everyone will pass their paper to the person on their right. The next person has to continue the story based on what the previous person has written. When there are only two or three more turns left until all the papers go back to the original writer who started the first sentence, let the students know that they should prepare to wrap up the story. Have fun reading the collaborative stories!
Learn more about the Round Robin Story writing activity.
Good Writing Prompts for Teens
FAQs About Writing Prompts for Teens
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about high school and middle school writing prompts.
What are some writing prompts for high school?
Three good writing prompts for high school students:
- Describe your favourite subject and least favourite subject.
- What would you study at university if you didn’t have to worry about money?
- Write a poem about your high school life.
What are the three types of writing prompts?
The three types of writing prompts are descriptive, narrative, and expository. Descriptive topics ask writers to create or describe an experience or thing. Narrative topics ask writers to tell a story about a real or made-up scenario. Lastly, expository topics ask students to provide information about a given topic.
What are some good journal topics?
Good journal topics provide a chance to reflect on yourself and think creatively. Check out some examples of good journal topics:
- Choose five symbols or objects that represent you. Explain how they represent you.
- What are ten things that make you happy and why?
- What is something that everyone else believes to be true but you don’t?
Writing Prompts for Teens: Join the Conversation
What are your thoughts on these top 30 writing prompts for teens? What is your favourite topic? Do you regularly keep a journal or diary? If there is a good writing topic for teens, let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.
