Low-Prep Back to School Writing Activities for the First Weeks of School – Class Tech Tips
The first few weeks of school provide a wonderful opportunity to set the stage for the year. Routines are introduced, students get a feel for their new classroom, and everyone is starting to get to know each other.
Those first days set the tone for the whole year. That is when you start your routines and students learn how your classroom works. It is also when you choose the activities that you will repeat every week from now until June. I love activities that accomplish a few goals all at once.
Today on the blog, I share back-to-school writing activities you can run in the first week of school. These activities from WeWillWrite can help students build new skills and grow your classroom community at the same time. They are quick, they need very little preparation, and they get every student writing!
Why Back to School Writing Activities Belong in Week One
Writing is one of those routines that pays off all year long. You can add it to your schedule starting in the first few weeks. When students write regularly, they build stamina before the stakes get higher and you also get a baseline for where each student is starting their writing journey.
Writing together as a team gives your class a focus and can build a supportive community of learners. Earlier this summer I wrote about collaborative writing activities for the classroom that feel like a team sport. Those activities all use WeWillWrite, and this post picks up right where that one left off with tips for the new school year. If writing has felt like a solo activity in your classroom, this shift can have a huge impact on your student writers!
How a Whole-Class Writing Session Works
WeWillWrite is a powerful platform built for short, live writing sessions with a whole class. To get started, all you have to do is pick a set (a group of three or four short writing challenges) to share with your class. If you are teaching a content area like science, math or social studies, you’ll find plenty of options that go beyond an ELA classroom.
Once you pick your set, students join on any device using a unique pin. There are no accounts to create and no rostering to sort out. That is a big help in the first week when your class list is probably still changing. Each challenge opens with an image and a short prompt, and students write in a timed burst that usually runs two to four minutes.
What happens next is perfect for building a community of supportive writers in your classroom. Students read a few of their teammates’ writing submissions anonymously and vote on the strongest one. The winning writing pieces are featured on the big screen in your classroom (aka the interactive whiteboard or projector). Then, you read them out loud, and the class talks about what made these pieces shine.
It’s a fantastic skill-building and community-building activity that follows a predictable routine. Students write, review, share and celebrate writing together.
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3 Back to School Writing Activities to Try This Week
1. Run a ready-made set this first week of school
The fastest way to start is to open WeWillWrite’s library, pick a set for your grade level, and run it. You can preview the whole session by yourself first if you want to see how it flows before students are in the room.
This works well as a first week of school activity because it does not require students to know anything about your class yet. All they need is a device and two minutes of focused writing time. A fourth grade ELA teacher might use a set about describing a character. A high school social studies teacher could pick one that asks students to build a quick argument.
2. Turn a get-to-know-you prompt into real writing practice
Icebreakers are fun, but a short writing burst can make connections across your classroom even deeper. You might choose a set that asks students to describe a summer moment, argue for the best cafeteria lunch, or convince the class that their weekend hobby deserves a class period. The prompt is a low lift for the beginning of the school year, and the practice underneath it is real. Students have to organize their thoughts, build an argument, and choose precise words.
Because the voting is anonymous, the usual social hierarchies in a new class do not have much room to operate. The student nobody expected might write the line that wins the vote, and that moment happens in front of everyone in week one.
3. Set the norms for digital participation while you are at it
The first weeks are when you teach students how to participate online in your classroom. This could include how to respond to a classmate’s work, what kind of feedback is useful, and what happens when your writing goes up on the screen. Running a live writing session gives you a low-stakes place to practice all of that with the whole class at once.
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Low Prep Writing Routines You Can Actually Keep Going
A routine you have to build from scratch every week is hard to commit to. I love the ease of launching an activity that is high-engagement and low prep. When I was a classroom teacher, predictable routines were a huge part of my classroom management. Students knew what to expect, and that made everything else easier.
As you might remember from my post featuring WeWillWrite earlier this summer, I had the chance to connect with team members in person at ISTE. We also had a wonderful conversation that I recently featured on my Easy EdTech Podcast.
I recorded a bonus episode of the Easy EdTech Podcast with Erlend Klouman Høiner and Bonnie Watson. Erlend is a former teacher and a co-founder of WeWillWrite. Bonnie is a fourth grade language arts teacher whose students greet her at the door asking to write. Bonnie shared what it looks like when the timer starts and the room goes quiet. And I loved her idea to use the same prompt in August and again in the spring so students can see their own growth.
You can press play above or listen to our conversation on how to build a back-to-school writing routine students love on your favorite podcast app!
Getting Started with Back to School Writing Activities
You do not have to overhaul your writing block to make this work in your classroom. To get started, pick one day in your first week, choose a ready-made set, and run it. Then decide if it becomes a Thursday thing, a Monday thing, or the way you start every unit.
The back to school writing activities that stick are the ones that take minutes to run and leave your students asking when they get to do it again. That is a great thing to hear in the first few weeks of the school year.
You can set up a free account today, run one ready-made set this week, and see what your students come up with when everyone starts from the same blank page. Start your free trial of WeWillWrite during the first few weeks of the school year!