Student Projects

Essay Prompts: A Better School Experience

What would you change about your school? Here are a few questions to consider. Choose a topic and a stance, and write an essay.

WebQuest: Uncommon Hobbies

Think of a hobby that’s pretty uncommon, at least where you live. Then do a webquest to find out what exactly the hobby is, what it’s special, who does it and more. Is it something you’d like to try?

Let your students consider: What is something you wish you knew a couple years ago? What’s something you’d like to tell your younger self? While reviewing a few grammar points, students can prepare a short video in which they give advice to younger students.

Poetry Prompt: Pentina

A pentina is a poem in which the same five words are repeated (each stanza) at the end of the line. Crafting such a poem means using the same words in different ways, so this is a good way to practice using words with multiple meanings or words that can be different parts of speech.

Character Journey

Students can create characters that they’ll use throughout the year. Each month, the character progresses a little closer to their goal, but in the meantime, they can be used to answer questions and for other activities. The possibilities are wide open.

From a Picture, a Thousand Words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Indeed, there is so much one can say about any given image. So let’s see just how much we can say about one picture: students need to describe, analyze, and speculate on everything they see in the image.

Show, Don’t Tell

A common adage among writers is “show, don’t tell”. Writing in this way prompts students to think of different ways to express the same thing. Students will have to use expressions and imagery – like native speakers do in most situations – instead of being straightforward.

WebQuest: Color Significance

Colors are often used to represent various concepts and to evoke certain moods. In design, colors are chosen carefully. In this WebQuest, each student will chose one color and research what it tends to signify, find examples of its usage, and craft their own assessments.

Customized Apples-to-Apples

Have your students compile all the nouns and adjectives they’ve learned over the past year, then put each on its own card. Play a customized Apples-to-Apples game tailored to your own class’s knowledge, skill level, culture, and interests.

Essay Prompts: This vs. That

Make your students form an argument as to why something is better than the alternative. As essay-writing practice, here are twenty topics. Students should choose which of a pair to support, and their arguments could be subjective, objective, or both.

Design a Town

Students create their own towns! They need to consider where the town is, what it’s known for, how big the town is, and more. They’ll need to figure out how many of each type of building to include. Students reason with their group-mates and come to decisions.

Class Newspaper

Writing for a school newspaper on a monthly basis can encourage students to write about things they’re interested in, can foster collaboration, and can help students practice writing in different styles.

Story Prompts: First Sentences

Whether you’re doing a fun exercise of flash fiction or you’re practicing a particular language topic, sometimes your students need a little push to get started. Here are ten first sentences of potential stories.

Make Your Own Zodiac

Zodiacs incorporate a lot of different elements and group the specifics together in interesting ways. Getting your students to design their own zodiac allows you to review multiple topics. It also requires reasoning and encourages creativity.

WebQuest: Music Recordings

Nowadays, music is ubiquitous, as are the devices that play them. Most people just play music off their computers or phones. Many kids in school don’t even know what CDs are, not to mention vinyl.

Movie Mania

Suppose there’s a new film coming out soon that many of your students are excited about. You can take that opportunity to give them some assignments they’ll enjoy. Different assignments will require different skills as we work both before and after the film’s release.

A Month of Writing

November is National Novel Writing Month, but your students don’t have to write a whole novel to challenge themselves and practice creative English. Encourage them to write 5,000 words instead. A short story in a month is still something to celebrate!

New Inventions

Encourage your students to think of some inventions, giving them a project to pour their creativity into. Different tasks throughout the project focus on different aspects of English, so this project can be used as a practical example for introducing new topics, or it might be a good review.