Dive into Summer Writing!

Enjoying time away from the hustle and bustle of the school year is well deserved; however, it’s important to keep the creativity ignited for the next year of learning. Summer break writing doesn’t have to be a structured, assignment-based task. Taking time to observe, discover, and record the season’s memories through writing is a beneficial way to maintain writing skills as well as create lasting pieces of writing to be cherished. This is also an opportunity for writers at all levels to explore various means and mediums used in writing. It also includes the freedom to write for oneself, which can often be lost in the business of the school year. The ultimate objective is for writers (both teachers and students) to arrive at school in the beginning of the  year feeling renewed, confident, and ready to begin another journey of learning. Below is a list of activities and ideas sure to inspire writers of all ages.

Writing Mediums: The Right Supplies for the Job

It is imperative that summer break writing be an enjoyable experience. Experimenting with different tools can inspire creativity. They also provide the impetus and motivation for beginning a writing project. These projects can include:

• Experimenting with different types of pens, pencils, markers, or even paints to discover what expresses the author’s feelings and project best. Even simply trying out a new background and font can instigate the urge to write.

• Try using different kinds of paper/paper products for writing. Finding something new can ignite the motivation to write.

• Explore non-traditional types of journals—there isn’t a rule that they have to be a notebook. Any method of collecting thoughts into one location works. Small boxes or folders can be decorated and made ready to catch writing pieces.  

• For some writers, just buying a new notebook or legal pad can inspire writing. For the more reluctant, trying to make a journal, complete with a new cover. It can help the creative ideas flow. Experimenting with making a collage on the journal cover. The artwork makes it more of a personal place to begin expressing oneself.

Overcoming the Obstacles

For some, writing is considered a rigorous task to be completed only within a specific structure, which can squash both the desire and the creativity to write. By changing the way we think about writing and what we consider to be writing can encourage ideas to surface. Here are some helpful tips to start the practice of writing during summer break, and hopefully extend into the school year.

• Time and Place: For some writers this has to be the same, with no exceptions. For other writers, trying out new places and times of the day can lend itself to different kinds of writing. Poolside in the afternoon, underneath a tree in the morning, or beside an evening campfire can make for different writing ideas and experiences.

• Create Observation Lists: When words and ideas are sparse, but the desire and opportunity to write exist, creating lists of the immediate environment is a calm way to spend time with your favorite writing tools. I often use this strategy at the beginning of the school year to begin journal writing. I guide writers by telling them to focus on the five senses. What do they see, hear, touch, smell, taste? This can be manipulated a bit by either closing one’s eyes, eating a piece of candy, or taking a sip of lemonade.

• Writing an Observation: Taking an experience like taking a sip of lemonade, or eating a favorite food can be easy to write into sentences, or even a poem. This can include taking observation lists and turning them into a story—fiction or nonfiction.

• Travel journals: Although this is a traditional summer writing tool, writers can diversify their entries by creating illustrations, poems, and attaching special items from the travel experience that include captions. My favorite is a quote page—what were the humorous or sweet things someone said during your trip? For those who take road trips, how about a list and tally sheet of the license plates you spotted during the trip?

• Word Art: Another classroom strategy I’ve relied on is having students paint, or use a medium of their choice, for favorite words. This is an activity that has no creative limits. Choosing words and displaying them creatively is a method to help writers become more aware of language and its potential. Mediums are anything that can be attached to paper, cardstock, or poster board. Small pebbles, clay (three-dimensional is a great look), dried flowers and stems, sand, and of course, glitter have all been successfully used.

Summer is a valuable time for writing. The opportunity for trying new writing tools and activities can be a special experience to allow writers to maintain and enhance their skills for the upcoming school year. Happy summer writing!

More Ideas to Inspire Writing:

Write On!: Hooking the Reader

Here is a lesson that includes a figurative language study in order to make narrative writing more interesting. Using both literature examples and online tools, writers are given both examples and creative ways to begin writing more interesting stories.

Caption Writing Activity

This activity teaches writers how to create and compose effective captions. The basic structure can be used with a variety of photos or art pieces.

What a Pair: A Cross-Grade Writing Activity

Learners cross grades to conduct interviews for others. Again, this basic structure can be used during the summer—interview friends and family of varying ages and discover an interesting summer writing project.