Using picture prompts to excite student writers on Google Drive & Classroom

How to teach writing and excite student writers in Google Drive & Google Classroom

It’s the same
thing every year for me- my girls love writing while my boys… well… hate it.
Every September I have the same conference critiques with parents in writing,
and they express the same concerns with me. “My child is a reluctant writer-
he/she has fabulous ideas, but they simply can’t figure out how to put those
ideas onto paper.” I knew that I needed a change to get my students practicing
writing. I began to use picture prompts through Google Classroom. Picture
prompts were something that worked for my students and could be used weekly so
that students understood and knew the routine. Not sure what I mean? Read on!

The idea of
using real-life pictures as prompts has been around for a few years now. I
remember during a school meeting, one of my fellow teammates mentioned how she
loved using real-life pictures to help spark students’ writing and work on
those oh-so-difficult inferencing skills. I can see why! Real-life pictures
automatically gain a student’s attention, and naturally as humans we start to
wonder, “what is happening in this picture?” I am an enormous Google Classroom
advocate, so I started looking for ways to use this idea with Google Classroom.
Unfortunately, I did not find much available. Finding 40 pictures and making a
new assignment for students every week felt daunting. I ended up creating my own
to address this need. If you want to save the time, you can also find my product on TPT!

WHY?

I knew that I
needed something to make my students WANT to write, to practice writing in a
way that didn’t seem “boring.” My students love looking at non-fiction books
complete with lots of graphics and pictures. I have seen fellow teachers and
peers use picture prompts to help excite students and give them an idea what to
write about. I KNEW that I wanted to use this for my students, but I wasn’t
quite sure if it would be enough. How else could I intrigue my students to
begin writing and make them excited? I am a huge advocate for technology in the
classroom… stick a laptop or iPad in front of one of my students, and suddenly
they will think any math problem or reading comprehension passage is a blast. I
decided to incorporate picture prompts into my students’ daily writing with the
use and ease of Google Classroom.

WHAT DO THEY
LEARN?

Your students
will not only work on their writing skills, but on their inferencing skills! My
kids greatly struggle with inferring, so any way that I can practice this vital
reading comprehension skill makes me excited. I don’t know about you, but I
find that every year my students struggle with things that aren’t smack dab in
front of them. We talk so much about finding evidence in the text, but the
thought of locating evidence that is not in the text and is instead inferred,
is plain hard. I get it, as humans we naturally look for things that are
concrete and in front of us. The abstract? Not so much. But these are skills
that kids need to learn to help with their understanding of their reading.

HOW?

I introduce
the writing picture prompts whole group. I scaffold and model my thought
process on using them up on the projector while students watch. I am literally
thinking aloud to them how I would go about doing this. I do this once a day
for two weeks, starting to ask for additional ideas in my writing. For example,
I look at a slide and say “hmmm… this is a picture of a dog. The dog is staring
at an empty food bowl. What could have happened to make the dog bowl empty?
What is the dog thinking? Is there anyone else around the dog? What will be do
now?” I start jotting down and writing my ideas. My students’ hands shoot up as
they try to answer my questions and create fun stories about this dog. Children
have a wild imagination- they are eager and their minds are racing as they
think about a picture in front of them. After a few weeks of scaffolding, they
will naturally begin to think about questions and decide how to answer them on
their own.

Each week,
give students a new Google Classroom picture prompt. I give my students a week
to complete each picture prompt. Why a week? I think once a day is too
ambitious, at least for my third-grade classroom. Of course, you know your
students best, so differentiate accordingly for the needs and abilities of your
own students! My students work on this prompt the entire week. I have a writing
station during my literacy centers, and students work on it during that. I also
tell them that it is up to them to get this finished in time. Some of my kiddos
choose to write a couple sentences at home. Some students ask if they can work
on it during dismissal. Some students This could easily be done for morning
work. Think about the very beginning of your day- some of my own students get
to the classroom at 8:50, and are there until 9:10 when the bell rings.

DIFFERENTIATION

Of course,
there will still be students that struggle getting their ideas and thoughts on
paper. To alleviate their frustration, try out the voice tool on Google
Classroom. Your students can literally speak into the microphone to record
their writing. This goes a long way with those reluctant writers. They will
begin gaining confidence in their writing and inferring skills as they keep
getting more comfortable.

RESULTS?

We are teachers… we use data in the ways that we teach. After implementing these visual prompts for Google Drive & Google Classroom, I found that not only was my students’ writing stronger, but the kids WANTED to write. They ask every day what the new picture would be. They would discuss the pictures during lunch and recess with their friends. This made my heart so happy, and allowed my students to have practice that did not feel monotonous, boring, and a chore.

There are
different ways that you could do this! You could find a weekly picture and have
students type up or write their answers. Want to save some time? My Visual Picture Prompt for Google Drive & Classroom resource
will cover your weekly picture prompts for the entire year. Each image is
engaging, and will make your students truly think, infer, and… most
importantly….write!

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Hey there, I’m Kelly! I I love helping teachers save time with technology and resources so they have more hours in the day to spend with family and friends. Take a look around to find new ideas that you can implement in your classroom today!

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