These creative ideas from some of my colleagues will help inspire both your top writers and your reluctant writers.

Angela Bunyi: During her first year as a Scholastic teacher mentor, Angela wrote a great article called "Supporting Your Budding Writers." It is full of ways to help those students who are constantly asking, “What can I write about?” She provides quick and easy methods for helping your writers self-select writing topics and become independent thinkers.

Ruth Manna: Ruth wrote a helpful post called "Teaching Writing — Choosing Topics." It focuses on the importance of providing students the freedom to select their own topics, a staple of an authentic Writing Workshop. She provides a list of ways to help students brainstorm ideas for narrative writing.

Danielle Mahoney: Danielle wrote two great posts on looking closely at your students' writing to truly plan and teach effective mini-lessons. The focus of her posts is to plan meaningful instruction that targets students' needs rather than simply adhering to a prescribed, scripted curriculum. Check out "Assess, Plan, Teach! Part 1 — Looking at Student Work" and "Assess, Plan, Teach! Part 2 — Strategies to Support Young Writers." 

Megan Power: Megan wrote about word choice designed specifically for primary writers. She showed how she uses picture books to help her kindergartners "play with words" using color words, similes and metaphors, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and strong verbs. Check out her creative post, "Unwrapping the 6 — Traits With Primary Writers: Word Choice."