150 Student Writing Prompts For Blogs, Digital Portfolios, Or Websites

If your students have their own blog, digital portfolio, or website, you may have found that their enthusiasm for writing was initially high. Students typically can’t wait to unleash their creativity and publish on their own online space, often for an authentic audience.

Sometimes when the initial excitement wears off, students start facing “bloggers’ block” or get in a rut of writing the same style of post over and over.

Our interesting collecting of writing prompts will help your students maintain momentum with their blog, website, or digital portfolio. The prompts allow your students to explore various genres, tools, and mediums. If you have students who are reluctant writers or perhaps you’re just looking for fresh and authentic ideas to get your students publishing, you’re in the right place. 

Scroll down to dive straight into the 150 prompts, or read on to find out more about the types of posts you could see on a blog, personal website, or digital portfolio.

We have created a PDF eBook of the 150 prompts that you can save, print, or share. You don’t need to ask permission to use the eBook as it has a BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license. You just can’t make derivatives or use the eBook commercially. And you should give attribution.

📌 Download the PDF eBook version of the prompts.

Download PDF eBook with 150 writing prompts for students of all ages in all subject areas.

Blogging isn’t like traditional writing — it’s a unique genre and it’s worth exploring what’s possible.

Here are 10 types of blog posts you commonly see on the web. This might give you inspiration to mix up the posts on your students’ blogs, websites, or portfolios.

1. Reflection: Deep thoughts and self-reflection on what you’ve learned, experienced, or what you’re thinking about. Putting it all out there can really help organize thoughts and ideas. Yu-Liang Shih’s reflection post and Andrea’s reflections on camp demonstrate how this style can be used as part of a student blog.

2. How-to/Helpful: Everyone loves using the web to find out how to do something. This classic style of post can be enhanced with pictures, videos, and other media. In this example, Steph made a tutorial on how to add a pet to her blog.

3. Journal/Diary/Recount: This is a versatile style of post that’s great for reading logs, field trips, science labs, special events, study abroad, and so on. Here’s an example from Evelyn who published a recount of her field study to Oregon.

4. News/Announcement: These posts aim to keep readers up-to-date with important information. In this example, educator George Couros announces a book study.

5. Marketing/Sales: Typically these are commercial style posts. Students could use blogs to advertise things like school events and fundraisers. For example, the students at Auroa School made a video to promote their school.

6. Controversial/Debate/Editorial: This involves taking a stance on an issue while backing up thoughts with facts and proof. Examples include: Sidd’s debate on cell phones in schools and Jackson’s Kids Watch Too Much TV.

7. Reviews: Many people love to take to the web to share their reviews (sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor may offer inspiration!). Here’s an example of a book review from teacher Kevin Hodgson.

8. Listicle: This is another name for a list post. We know how popular articles are that start with something like “10 ways to…”. These sorts of posts often offer the reader quick wins. In this example, Mrs. Yollis and her students list their top 12 quarantine essentials.

9. Curation Posts: Sometimes a blog post or page is used to curate a list of resources on a particular topic. This page of live events and virtual field trips is an example of a curated list from Mrs. Hamman.

10. Ongoing Series: Choose any of the above, but split it up into several shorter posts that get published over a set period of time. The posts could connect sequentially, or just fall under the same umbrella topic. For example, Sheri Edwards did a series of posts using the Slice of Life writing prompts.

Styles Of Posts On Blogs, Websites, Or Portfolios

There are a number of ideas on how to structure posts. You might want to stick to a consistent style or mix things up.

  • Informal with short paragraphs and casual language Vs formal with writing that follows traditional academic guidelines, perhaps with references.
  • Long-form where a topic is broken down into great detail Vs micro-blog which may only include a few sentences, often with the intention to encourage readers to leave comments.
  • Multimedia rich with slideshows, photos, videos, or podcasts Vs text only such as the style of writing you’d see in a traditional academic essay.

We’ve divided the prompts up into 8 broad topics to make navigation easier. Of course, some prompts could fit into more than one category.

Getting Started

These topics are ideal for getting students used to publishing online.

1) Introductions: Who are you? Share your hobbies, interests, family background, and anything else you want others to know while remembering to protect your personal information if your site is public. This information might be best on a static About page so it’s easy for new visitors to refer to. Here’s a great example of an About page from Steph.

2) Personal A to Z: Create an A-Z of yourself or one of your interests (e.g. an A-Z of basketball or gardening).

3) Avatar: Create an avatar (online character) to use on your blog and write a post to explain how it represents you. This post on the Student Blogging Challenge demonstrates some different ways you can make an avatar using online tools.

4) Commenting Guidelines: Write a post to explain what you expect when someone leaves a comment on your blog. There is some information and examples on the Student Blogging Challenge site on how to write commenting guidelines.

5) Goals: Share some goals that you have set for yourself. For example, you could publish one goal for this week, one goal for this month, and one goal for this school year. Describe how you plan to accomplish your goals.

6) Holiday: Share what you did on a recent holiday or vacation. Include photos or videos if you have permission. Alternatively, you could write about your dream vacation. Where would you go and what would you do?

7) Hero/Mentor: Write about someone who inspires you. It could be someone you know in real life or someone famous from the past or present. What is it about this person that makes them so special?

8) My Country or Culture: Publish facts about your country or a culture that you’re interested in. You could write a post focusing on food, festivals, songs, stories, clothing, geography, or anything else.

9) School History: Write some information about your school’s history. You could focus on the buildings, write about someone who used to go to the school, or reflect on how the curriculum or rules have changed.

10) Classrooms: Explain what the classrooms and buildings are like in your school or describe what your perfect classroom would look like. Use your imagination; your dream classroom could be indoors, outdoors, in a school, or somewhere else!

11) Favorite…anything: Publish a post that discusses topics you’re passionate about. You could write about your favorite animal, TV show, movie, holiday, sports, or hobbies.

12) Reader Quiz: Your quiz could be about anything — Disney movies, chemistry, capital cities, football… you choose! Readers could answer in a comment or in Google Forms. This could be a great way to get to know your audience. You might like to do a follow-up post that goes over the results, including graphs, charts, and analysis. BEAM is a simple tool for making basic charts.

13) Guest Post: Ask a friend or family member if they’d like to write a guest post on your blog. Make sure you approve it before publishing.

14) Top 10: Make a top 10 list of anything. For example, you could rank your favorite songs, actors, sports, or foods.

15) Interview: Interview someone in your family or community. There might be interesting people at your school you could interview too like your principal, cleaner, librarian, or crossing supervisor.

16) Three Wishes: If you had three wishes, what would they be? Invite your readers to share their own wishes in a comment.

Online Prompts

17) Video Prompts: John Spencer has made some fabulous short video writing prompts that could really get your imagination going. Check out the YouTube playlists of prompts here.

18) Pobble 365: Every day there is a new photo prompt and literacy starters posted on the Pobble 365 website. These are ideal to respond to when you’re stuck for ideas.

19) New York Times Writing Prompts: Multiple times a week, The New York Times publishes writing prompts for students. There are Picture Prompts (images with questions), What’s Going on in this Picture? (images stripped of captions) and Student Opinions (daily questions inspired by Times’ content). There’s lots of inspiration for you to choose from!

20) What’s Going on in this Graph? Another initiative from The New York Times, a graph, map, or chart is published regularly as an invitation for students to discuss. Find a graph that fascinates you and share your interpretation.

21) 1,000 Writing Prompts: The New York Times has also compiled 1,000 Writing Prompts For Students. There’s sure to be something that interests you amongst that collection!

22) Language is a Virus: This excellent site has a multitude of prompts, exercises, and gadgets to inspire your writing. One example is Visual Poetry where you can display your writing in artistic and whimsical ways. Screenshot your creation for a blog post.

23) Practice Your English: MMG’s English blog has been created by a teacher with prompts for students to practice their English. You will find jokes, quotes, recipes, videos, and more. Find one that interests you and share a response on your blog.

24) Visual Writing Prompts: Teach Starter has created a collection of visual writing prompts. The images are Creative Commons Zero which means you’re free to upload them to your blog.

25) Creative Writing Prompts: Writer’s Digest offers regular written prompts that are ideal for older students. Have a browse and see if there is a prompt to inspire a new post.

26) Scholastic Story Starters: If you’re in K-2, you might enjoy this a fun interactive site where you can create your own prompts for a variety of writing genres.

27) Wonderopolis: This popular multi-disciplinary site posts a “wonder of the day” with lots of kid-friendly information, definitions, and a quiz. You could choose the daily wonder or a past wonder and reflect or summarize it in a blog post. You can even add a Wonderopolis widget to your blog.

28) Secondary Blogging Prompts: Check out these 20 blogging prompts from educator Randy Rodgers. They’re designed for teens but some could be used by younger students. There may be a prompt to get your creative juices flowing.

29) Writer Igniter: Get inspiration from Writer Igniter which provides you with a character, situation, prop, and setting. This is best for middle school or high school students.

30) Printable Comic Prompts: MakeBeliefsComix has a huge collection of writing prompts divided into categories. There’s something for everyone!

31) Random Emoji Generator: Create a story based on emoji prompts. Go to the byrdseed site to generate your prompts. You can then copy the emojis into a post and write a story based on them.

32) Siri Conversation Tool: Generate your own Siri conversation via ifakesiri. Embed the conversation on your blog or take a screenshot. What’s something creative you could ask Siri about?

33) 100 Word Challenge: If you’re under 16, you might enjoy this weekly creative writing challenge. You’ll find more details and registration information on the 100 Word Challenge website.

34) The Student Blogging Challenge: Every March and October we run a free 8 week supported blogging challenge where students aged 8-16 are given weekly prompts. Student and class posts are visited by a global audience. Maybe you can join us for the next challenge?

Interdisciplinary and Fun

35) Expert FAQs: Are you an expert on something? LEGO? Minecraft? Pokemon? Ballet? Write “Frequently Asked Questions” and answers about your topic.

36) Test Review “Cheat Sheet”: Use images, videos, and text to create a post that your classmates can use as a study guide to prepare for an upcoming assessment.

37) Exit Ticket: Write a short summary of what you learned in class before leaving. Include any questions you still have and a list of any assignments or tasks you still need to complete.

38) Quotes: Choose a quote that inspires you or is relevant to what you’re learning. Explain why you chose the quote and what it means to you. We have a post all about using quotes that will give you some tips.

39) Video Comparison: Embed two or more videos on a topic from YouTubeVimeo, or TED and then compare and contrast the videos. If you’re unsure how to embed videos, we have a help guide to walk you through it.

40) Would You Rather? Create some “would you rather..?” questions for your audience such as, “Would you rather live 100 years in the past or future?” or “Would you rather be able to fly or swim underwater without breathing?” Share your own thoughts too!

41) Future Me: Write an email to yourself when you are one, five, or ten years older. This could be a blog post in itself, or for 13+ students, the FutureMe website could be used to actually send the email.

42) Jokes: Who doesn’t like jokes? Find some online or share your own favorite jokes to give your readers a laugh. The TLC Tutoring Updates blog used images and scrolling space to format their joke post. Alternatively, you could reveal the answers in the comments section.

43) Gratitude Journal: Use your blog or portfolio to reflect on what you’re grateful for. Perhaps this could become a weekly practice.

44) Special Days of the Year: Use a website like Days of the Year to find out what fun or lighthearted days are being celebrated. For a more serious approach, select an International Day from the United Nations International Day list. Write a post to explain the special day and what it means to you. (Teacher tip: You may want to choose the days for younger students, rather than allowing them to browse these sites).

45) Principal for the Day: What would you do if you were principal for the day? Don’t hold back in sharing your ideas!

46) Video Game Review: Write a review for an online game. Share the pros, cons, and a star rating. Don’t forget to include the link to the game so others can try it.

47) Kindness: List some random acts of kindness that you’d like to see other students try. You might get some ideas from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.

48) Recipes: Pretend you’re a food blogger! Share a recipe that you enjoy eating or making. Spice up your post with a photo of the end result.

49) World Records: Browse the kids’ Guinness World Records website and write about an impressive record. Or tell your readers what sort of world record you’d like to attempt.

50) Secret Code: Come up with a secret code and share a message on your blog or portfolio. Perhaps a number could represent each letter of the alphabet or you could write each word backwards. Ask readers to guess what the post says in a comment.

51) Curious Minds: Publish a list of questions you have about the world or about a certain topic. You don’t have to answer the questions. It can sometimes just be good to explore the things you’re curious about.

52) Memes: These are fun messages that are spread widely online. Maybe you could make a meme that relates to a topic you’re studying at school. Meredith Akers has shared a Google Drawings meme generator that’s safe for students.

53) Sports Report: Provide an overview of a sports competition your school, community, or professional team has been involved in. If you choose a local sport, perhaps you could interview some participants or coaches.

54) Life in the Future: Make some predictions about what life will be like in 5, 10, 50, or even 100 years from now. You could even interview others to find out their thoughts on the future.

55) Trends: Discuss the latest trends in the schoolyard. Games, fashion, toys … what’s hot and what’s not? Maybe you could ask someone older than you what the trends were when they were at school.

56) Playground Fun: Offer activity suggestions that other students could try out at recess and lunchtime if they’re bored. You could even sort your suggestions into age groups.

57) Productivity Tips: Help your fellow students learn to manage their time better with some useful tips and tricks. Maybe you have tips for managing homework or chores at home, using a diary or calendar, or making lists.

58) Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use: These are important topics for any publisher to know about. Check out our Guide to Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use on The Edublogger. Write a post, create a video, or design a poster to teach others about these topics.

59) Digital Citizenship: What tips do you have to stay safe online? Share these with others in a post, a video, comics, memes, or posters. Check out these internet safety tips for students for ideas.

60) Blogging Tips: Be your school’s “problogger” and share some bite-sized tips for fellow bloggers. Maybe you could make tutorials on things like adding images to your post, making a custom header, or adding links to your site. You could even make a screencast using a tool like Loom or Screencastify.

Art, Images, and Music

61) Photo Blog: Have you heard of 365 photography or “a photo a day” type blogs? This is something Linda Yollis has been doing since 2010 with her Yollis’ 365 Project. Students and the community are invited to send in photos and captions. You could create a similar style blog or post series.

62) Picture Prompt: Add a copyright-free image from Photos For Class to a post and write about it. Create a poem, story, information report, or any other style of writing based on your image.

63) Image or Artwork: There are many free web tools where you can create digital artwork. Some examples are Google Drawingsemoji.ink, Toy Theatre Art ToolsBomomo abstract art, Tate Kids street art, Draw Island, and Auto Draw.  If you want to be blown away with what’s possible, check out the Fugle Blog where K-5 teacher, Tricia Fuglestad, combines art and technology in truly creative ways.

64) Emoji Artwork: Make some emoji artwork using emoji.ink. Add your image to a post and tell your readers about it.

65) Infographic: Use a tool like Canva, PiktochartVenngage, or Infogram to create an infographic and then write a post describing your graphic. Alternatively, create infographics using several of these different tools then write a review of the tools you used. Which one was best and why?

66) Get Crafty: Try a craft activity with paper or other materials you have on hand and write a tutorial. You could include written instructions, photos, or videos. Not sure what craft to try? There’s lots of inspiration online. Education.com has a comprehensive collection of ideas.

67) Make a Song: Create your own original song in Chrome Music Lab. Click on “Save” to get the link or embed code to publish your song in a post.

68) Favorite Instrument: Do you have a favorite instrument or is there an instrument that fascinates you? Do some research and write a post about it. Add an image or video to your post if you can too.

69) Make a Playlist: Write a post that includes a playlist of your favorite songs. Don’t forget to explain why you like each song and why it’s part of your playlist. Your playlist might even be for a specific occasion like a birthday party, wedding, or school graduation. You could even make a soundtrack of your life!

70) Guess the Artist, Song, or Instrument: Give your readers some clues as they scroll down the page and have them guess the artist, song, or instrument. Invite your readers to put their guesses in a comment.

71) Share Your Talents: Can you sing or play an instrument? Film yourself and add your video to a post. If you don’t have musical talents yourself, find someone else you can record and interview them.

72) Guess That Sound: Embed some sounds from the free collection on the BBC website. Have your readers guess the sounds in a comment. Don’t forget to reply to your comments to tell your readers if they were correct. (Tip: To use the BBC sound effects, you need to link back to their site and include the word “copyright” and the year).

Reading and Writing

73) Book Review: You can include a summary of the plot without spoilers, your favorite quotes, a star rating, and a photo of the book. Or maybe you could create some BookSnaps (annotated photos of text from a book).

74) Book Recommendations: Create a recommended reading list for others to enjoy. Check out this list from the OJCS Library blog for inspiration.

75) Poetry: There are many styles of poetry you could experiment with. Ken Nesbitt’s Poetry 4 Kids is a great site to get help with writing poems. You might also like to try a ReadWriteThink poetry interactive that guides you through the writing process then publish your poem on your blog. Tip: you need Flash enabled to use the ReadWriteThink interactives so they won’t work on an iPad.

76) Expand Your Vocabulary: Improve your writing by trying Describing Words. This free web tool helps you find new words to describe nouns. Try out the tool and reflect on your discoveries in a post. There’s also a version that helps you find related words as well as a reverse dictionary.

77) Change a Story Ending: Choose a well-known story (perhaps a fairytale or another classic) and publish a different ending. You can ask for feedback from readers in the comments.

78) Interactive Endings: Write the beginning of a short story and invite your readers to finish it in a comment. Alternatively, you could write two different endings and have readers vote for their favorite.

79) Words From Your Birth Year: Write a post about some of the words that were introduced in the year you were born according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. Include your thoughts or research on why these words were introduced in that year.

80) News Report: Read information on children’s news sites like Newsela, Scholastic Kids, Time for Kids, or DOGO News. Then summarize a news story for your readers with your own reflections or opinions included. Tip: There is even a DOGO News plugin.

81) Wordless videos: Speech pathologist Sarah has compiled a list of wordless videos. You could embed one in a blog post and write a script, recount, or reflection on the meaning behind the video.

82) Interactive Stories: Google Slides can be used to create interactive or “choose your own adventure” type stories. Jake Miller has made a useful GIF to explain how to do this. For an example story, check out The Electronic Pencil blog by Kevin Hodgson. Finally, if you want to know how to embed your Google Slides presentation into a post, these instructions walk you through it.

83) Spelling/Vocabulary: Share your spelling words or a set of interesting words you have recently come across. Define the words or create interesting sentences to share with readers. You could even use a site like Spelling City and screenshot some of your activities.

84) Grammar and Punctuation: Share your understanding of a concept you’re learning to help others understand an aspect of grammar or punctuation. You could make a comic, a poster, a video, a quiz, a song, or anything else!

85) Newspaper: Create your own online newspaper to share on your blog. Kathryn made Early Bird News in Google Docs and added the link to her blog post. It even includes fake news stories, advertisements, and a comic. MHMS Daring School students worked collaboratively on their newspaper.

86) Storyline Online Review: Watch a book being read by a professional actor on Storyline Online and prepare a book review or summary (you can embed the story in a post).

87) Six Word Story: Stories don’t have to be long, they can even have just six words! Melissa Pilakowski has some examples on her teacher blog of six word stories if you’d like some inspiration.

88) Persuasive Writing: Make your case for an argument, for example, why dogs are better than cats, why the school cafeteria should offer a different menu, or why school uniforms are a good idea. You could write a persuasive piece about any light-hearted or serious topic you’re interested in.

89) Emoji Rebus Story: Have you heard of a rebus story? It’s where some words are replaced with an image. There’s a tool called Emoji Translate that will automatically replace some of your words with emojis (you can copy your translated text/emojis back into your post).

90) Language Learning: Do you speak or learn another language? Share some basic words and phrases with your audience. You could even add a voice recording or video. If you don’t have a second language, do some research and pass on what you learned. Or, write about the language you’d like to learn if you had the chance and why.

History and Geography

91)  Virtual Field Trips: It’s now possible to visit faraway places without even leaving the classroom. The We Are Teachers website lists 25 of the best virtual field trips to explore. Once you’ve been on your “field trip”, it’s time to review the experience.

92) Tour Builder: Using Google Earth’s Tour Builder tool you can integrate text, photos, and videos onto Google Maps to create an immersive storytelling experience for your viewers. You could share a tour across your town, country, or anywhere in the world. You can also make a tour to map the journey of a historical figure. You can share your tour by embedding it onto your site.

93) Global Issue: Select a global issue that you’re passionate about or interested in and write a post to share your concerns. You might want to base your issue on The Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 goals focus on things like poverty, hunger, health, education, and climate action.

94) Did You Know? Use information from a website like National Geographic Kids, Simple English Wikipedia, or Fact Monster to publish your own “Did you know?” snippets around a particular topic.

95) List of Items: Create a list of items that would be used in a certain time in history, by a historical figure, or in a particular location around the world.

96) A to Z: Create an A to Z list of something you’re studying, for example, a certain historical event or geographical location.

97) Travel Brochure: Design and publish a travel brochure for a particular geographical location. You could use a tool like Canva or Google Drawings to create the brochure and then add it to your blog as a PDF or image file.

98) Landmark Photo: Richard Byrne has demonstrated how to use Remove.bg, Google Slides, and Pixabay to put yourself in front of any world landmark. Try out his method then add your image to a post with some facts about the landmark.

99) Venn Diagram: Choose two different people, places, or events to compare such as two historical figures, two different countries, or two historical events. Make a Venn diagram to compare and contrast. You could use an online tool like Visual Paradigm or something like Canva or Google Drawings to make the Venn diagram. Or you could draw the diagram on paper and take a photo to add to your post.

100) Who Am I? Share some clues about a historical figure, for example — where and when they were born, their education, their personal life, and what they’re famous for. See if your readers can make an accurate guess in a comment.

101) Guess This Place: Share some clues about a geographical location for example — the continent it’s on, the climate, famous citizens, landmarks, well-known events, the latitude and longitude. Ask your readers to share their guess in a comment.

102) Historical Artifacts: Share an image of a historical object or artifact. For example, you might want to look at the public domain collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It includes more than 400,000 images from The Met collection that are free to use. Share some images in a post and write your own description. Or ask your readers to guess what they think the images are.

103) Color History: #ColorOurCollections is a website where various institutions add historical images that can be printed and colored in. Find a page that interests you to print and color. Then add a photo of your completed work to your blog and write a description.

104) Make A Timeline: Timelines can be about people’s lives, places, or historical events. Traditionally, you could make a timeline on paper but there are now lots of online tools that help you make your timeline with multimedia. Richard Byrne compares the best tools to use in this post. Try out one of the tools and add your timeline to a post.

105) SMS Generator: Using a free tool called SMS Generator you can make fake text message conversations between two historical figures. When you’re done you can screenshot or embed your conversation.

106) Old Newspaper Articles: Did you know Google has a collection of archived newspaper articles? Find an interesting article from a time or place you’re studying. Link to the article in your post and write an analysis.

107) Flags: Do some research into a flag of the world or another important flags and summarise the key information. Alternatively, you might like to design your own flag. Include the image in a post with a description of your flag.

108) Historical Report or Guest Author: Write a traditional report profiling a historical figure, or pretend you are a famous historical figure that is blogging about a significant event.

109) Historical Stories: Authors often use a historical event as the basis of a fictional story. Create a story based on a certain time and location in history. You would keep the main historical information accurate while coming up with fictional characters and perhaps storylines.

110) Personal History: Interview someone to share a little about their own personal history. Or you could even share some of your own history. Everyone has a story!

111) Maps Comparison: Find two maps from different time periods that show the same location. What are the similarities and differences in the maps? Maybe some things have been added, removed, replaced, or extended. A useful website to find old maps might be Old Maps Online or The Library of Congress. If you want to take it a step further, Richard Byrne demonstrates how to overlay an old map over a current Google Map.

112) Time Travel: If you could live in any other place and/or time, what would you choose and why?

Math and Science

113) Vocabulary: Choose a vocabulary word that you’re learning about and write a post that describes this word in different ways such as: a definition, in a sentence, in an example/image, in a table/graph, in symbols/equations. Check out this vocabulary slide deck template by Meagan Kelly which you could fill out and embed in your blog.

114) Image Hunt: Look around you for examples of concepts you’re studying in class. Take photos and add them to a post. Maybe you could look for mathematical arrays, 3 digit numbers, fractions, or patterns.

115) Riddles: Research some math riddles. There are some on Riddles.com and Mashup Math. After trying some out yourself, share your favorites on your blog or make up your own. Invite your readers to solve your riddles in a comment.

116) Math Movies: Explaining math concepts through videos can be very effective. The students in Mr. Avery’s class share some great examples on the Math Movie Network (many years on these examples are still inspiring). Check out The Educator’s Guide to Using Video in Teaching and Learning to find out more about tools students can use for video creation.

117) NRICH: The NRICH project by the University of Cambridge publishes weekly maths problem-solving tasks for students. Students can submit answers on the website, but you can also publish your response on your blog or portfolio. Problems are broken up into age groups.

118) Estimations: Make some mathematical estimations such as the length of your hallway, the weight of your lunchbox, or the number of shirts hanging in your closet. Share your estimations on your blog and then measure or count to find out the actual answer. How far off were you? How did you make your estimates and how did you find out the actual answers?

119) Math Journals: Use your blog or portfolio as a journal to reflect on your math learning. Here is some math journal prompts from ReadWriteThink that you could base your reflections on.

120) Problem Solve: Publish a problem-solving task in a post and invite readers to provide the solution in the comments. You might get ideas for problems from a site like NRICH. Tip: choose a problem where there are multiple solutions, or hold off on moderating comments until a few readers have had the chance to respond. Maybe you could explain the answer in a follow-up post.

121) Same but Different: Browse the sites Same But Different Math or Same Or Different to see lots of photos of how mathematical concepts are the same but different. Set up some photos of your own to add to a blog post and share your thoughts on how the images are similar and different.

122) Solvemoji: There’s a popular site called Solvemoji.com where emojis are used in maths puzzles. Have a browse, then make your own puzzles for your readers using a tool like Google Drawings, Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva. Just save your creation as a PNG or JPEG and upload it to your blog like any other image. Here’s a Google Doc tutorial for this activity from Mrs. Yollis.

123) Would You Rather Math: This website collates pictures with a mathematics problem that asks “Would you rather?” For example, “Would you rather have a box of chocolates with 5 rows and 14 columns or 7 rows and 9 columns”. Make up your own image or link to one from the website. Then tell your readers what you would rather and justify your response.

124) Money: Learn about the currency in another part of the world and share what you learned with your readers. Don’t forget to include some images. You might be able to find some images using the Creative Commons search engine.

125) Math Game Review: There are lots of interactive math games available on the web or on mobile devices. Try out a game and then share a review. Include details like how to access the game, what it helps you learn, pros and cons, and an age recommendation.

126) Science Master: Curious about science? Science Master is a safe site where you can submit your own science question and get a personalized answer. Check out this post on The Edublogger to find out a bit more about how it works. After you submit your question, write about it on your own blog.

127) Science Experiment: Find a science experiment in a book, online, or in a video. For example, Try This! is a series of science experiments from National Geographic Kids. With permission from an adult, replicate the experiment and then blog about it. Alternatively, you might want to make up your own experiment to learn more about something you’re curious about.

128) Science Video: There are lots of great science videos online. Two examples are TED-Ed and SciShow Kids YouTube Channel. Find a video that interests you, then write a post about it. You might write a summary of the video and include your own thoughts or questions. Alternatively, you can make a quiz for your readers about the video. Invite them to answer the quiz in a comment.

129) Two Truths and One Lie: Challenge your readers with a simple “two truths and one lie” quiz. Your task is to write a post that includes two correct statements and one incorrect statement. Ask your readers to guess the lie! Your statements could be about a certain math or science topic or a mix of topics.

130) NASA Space Place: Check out NASA Space Place to learn more about Earth and Space. There are games, activities, articles, videos, and more. Write a post about something you learned from the website.

131) Science News: There is interesting science news being reported all the time. Check out Science News for Students and find an article you’re interested in. Share a summary in your own words on your blog. You might include some follow up questions you’d like to research.

132) Coding: Learning to code can be fun. There are lots of sites and apps you can use to learn to code. Code.org is a good starting place. Try out one of the activities and then write a post about it. Explain what you learned and what challenges you had to overcome to complete the activity.

133) Gardening: Try growing something at home or school like a vegetable, plant, or flower. Blog about the changes in a series of posts and describe how you’re tending to your garden. The Kids Gardening website has some ideas to help you get started including the fun grass seed “chia” pet.

134) Science Careers: Research a science related career and tell your readers about it. Perhaps you could even interview someone in the profession. Is this a career you’d be interested in? Alternatively, you could choose two careers and compare them in a post.

135) Looking After the Environment: Share tips on how to reduce, reuse, recycle, or look after our planet. Maybe you can share some changes you’re making in your own life to be more environmentally conscious.

136) Diagrams: A scientist often makes diagrams to record and communicate information. Make a diagram with labels to illustrate a scientific concept (e.g. parts of an insect, the layers of the Earth, or the water cycle). Check out Science A-Z for some examples of science diagrams. Make your diagram on paper (and upload a photo) or use an online tool like Canva or Google Drawings.

Other Web Tools

💡 Teacher Tip: There are countless free online tools that can be used to create, publish, collaborate, and present. If you’re working with younger students, it’s important to check the terms and conditions on the site as some tools are only suitable for students over the age of 13.

137) GIFs: These can be fun additions to your posts that bring your images and descriptions to life. Try an online tool like Brush Ninja or ABC Animate to make a GIF to demonstrate your learning or feelings.

138) Prezi: Prezi is an online presentation and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional series of slides. The images, text, videos, and other objects are placed on the canvas and users can zoom in and out. Create a Prezi about something you’re interested in and add it to a post.

139) Google Slides: Slides presentations are great to add to posts. The simplest way to use Google Slides is to create a slide deck. That is, a collection of slides put together to form a presentation. Learn more about how to use and embed Google Slides in this beginner’s guide.

140) Animation: Produce a video with a tool like Biteable or Powtoon. Share your animation and write about the decisions you made when making the video.

141) Talking Avatars: Create a speaking character using Voki to read your post or to interact with your blog’s visitors. Voki characters can be customized to look like historical figures, cartoons, animals, or yourself! Voki characters can be embedded on your site on a post, page, or sidebar.

142) Word Cloud: Make a word cloud using one of these online tools or iPad apps. Add your word cloud to your blog. You could even invite readers to guess the topic.

143) Jigsaw Puzzle: Instead of adding a normal photo to your post, make a jigsaw out of one of your photos on Jigsaw Planet or Jigsaw Explorer and embed it. Ask your readers to leave a comment to tell you how they went with the puzzle.

144) Wakelet: Wakelet allows you to save, organize, and tell stories with content from around the web. You can sign up for free or create a quick collection without signing up. Make a Wakelet about a topic you’re studying or something you’re interested in. Embed your Wakelet in a post. Read more about getting started with Wakelet.

145) AnswerGarden: This is a free online tool to get feedback on a question. You make an AnswerGarden with a question and then embed or link to it on your site. When people respond to your question, their answers form a word cloud. Learn more about AnswerGarden here.

146) Comics: Create a comic using Make Beliefs Comix or Toondoo and share it on your blog. Your comic could be designed to educate, inform, or entertain.

147) Podcasts: These are simply audio files that are published online. You might like to make a series of podcasts to coincide with a subject you’re studying or a project you’re working on. Anchor.fm is a popular free service for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Check out The Edublogger’s Guide To Podcasting to learn more.

148) Digital Bulletin Board: Padlet is an online bulletin board that you can embed in a blog post to share notes, voice recordings, videos, documents, links, and more. You can only create three Padlet walls with the free account but Richard Byrne suggests some similar free tools in this post.

149) Animoto: This free tool lets you make videos that combine photos and/or video footage with music and interesting transitions. You can make an Animoto about an event or something you’re learning and embed it on your site.

150) Mindmap: Create a mindmap for brainstorming, collating notes, demonstrating your learning, or presenting your findings. You might like to try a free online tool like Bubbl.us which doesn’t require an account.

As you think about using these prompts in the classroom, try to vary it up. Helping students to get out of their comfort zones and try something new might spark a new talent or passion.

It’s always worth considering how you can give some students choice in the type of posts they create. Choice can lead to ownership and higher levels of motivation. You never know what your students might produce!

One tip to keep in mind is that when you’re creating work or images using online tools, you can sometimes save your work as an image (e.g. JPEG or PNG), or embed your work, but at other times you’ll need to take a screenshot. This article by PC Mag explains how to take a screenshot on almost any device.

From a safety perspective, if you have public blogs or websites, ensure students are aware of what information should be kept private before they begin blogging. Edublogs and CampusPress users can use My Class to easily moderate students’ posts and comments before they’re live on the web.

The acronym YAPPY might help your students develop their understandings about privacy. Learn more about digital footprints in this post.

Graphic describing the information students should not reveal online

When using writing prompts, it can also be helpful to keep the SAMR model in mind as Silvia Tolisano explained in one of her classic posts.

Sometimes, you might simply be substituting traditional pen and paper tasks for an online task. As you and your students become more comfortable with publishing online, consider ways you can redefine tasks to achieve something that would not be possible without a blog, website, or online tools.

Lefflerd / CC BY-SA

Hopefully this list will ensure you or your students are never scrambling for blogging ideas again, however, it is far from exhaustive.

Another idea is to recycle posts. This is what we’re doing right here! This post of prompts was first published many years ago and we’ve updated it a couple of times. You might have an old post that you enjoyed or that struck a chord with readers. Why not do an update or follow up post in a similar style? Reflect on your best content and re-purpose or repeat it.

If you have a class blog, you could create a page with writing ideas for your student bloggers. Room 6 in New Zealand have done this on their blog.

This post is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of getting students to write online so we want to hear from you in the comments.

Do you have any additional ideas to share with fellow bloggers? Have you tried any of these ideas? How did they go? Please leave your comments and links below.

Happy blogging!

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37 thoughts on “150 Student Writing Prompts For Blogs, Digital Portfolios, Or Websites

  1. Thank you for the ebook and PDF versions that you have added in response to the creative writing ideas and blogs. My students contribute to a nine letter word scrambler each week as well as a “word of the week” approach which always keeps their engagement and interest to a peek when they enter the classroom environment. The fact these are grouped into different KLA’s is stunning. Does anyone else find the NRICH problems (maths-based) beneficial for their students?

  2. I am going to allow my students to create a Blog space to post their experiences once a week. I like the idea that BLOGGING will give them a space to express themselves.

  3. Students in my Creative Writing class have a weekly prompt to consider and respond to. One of our prompts was similar to #62 picture prompt. I am now considering having my class use an online forum for these weekly responses, rather than keeping them in a journal. Thanks for the ideas!

  4. This has been really helpful, since I am a student who needs to do blogs for an English class. So thank you.

  5. Thank you for sharing so many wonderful ideas and links.It is really helpful.
    I am an educator and I am facing a problem in creating an account on edublog. It says contact for spamming.Can you help?

  6. Would love to use this resource, but when I click on the link to pdf it only opens the cover page and nothing more, can anyone help me?

  7. Thank you for this. This is so helpful! I definitely have more ideas on themes for a blog that I can create for my parents and students.

  8. Hi!
    Thank you for this wonderful blog! I am a student, however I teach Year 2 students, and I was running out of ideas on things to post on the blog (I have a separate blog for my classroom). I will definitely use your advice.
    Thank you again and have a great day!

  9. i would love to use these prompts and share one of them with you! just want to know if thats ok! have a nice day!

    1. Hi there,

      You’re welcome to use the prompts and feel free to share anything with us too.

      Thanks!
      Kathleen

  10. This is a beautiful work! Congratulations Ronnie, Sue and Kathleen! I would love to translate this post and spread these ideas in my school. I have given it the pdf to one of our Teachers of English here at school. I have also many writing prompts for my Portuguese students made up either by them selves either by me that I could translate into English and share with you. Some of them have been inspired in “Emotional Ecology” for children, by the Catalan authors María Mercé Conangla and Jaume Soler, or in “Emotional Intelligence” by Maurice Elias article in Edutopia, with their permission.
    Ines

    1. Thanks, Ines! You are welcome to translate and share, we’d just appreciate a link back to this post is included 🙂 We’d love to the prompts for your Portuguese students as well!

  11. This was incredibly timely! I run a middle school library, and a teacher had just asked me for ideas for blogging about a new novel her class is reading. We will be using the top 10 types of posts to have students use different formats of writing as they relate to the novel. So, a marketing campaign for the new housing development the family just moved into, or a sports article covering the soccer game, etc. She is thrilled with the idea, and we both look forward to trying more of the ideas in your post. Thanks so much!

    1. Hi Mary,

      This comment really brought a smile to our faces here at Edublogs. We are so pleased that the resource is timely for you and your school!

      I love the idea of using the 10 sorts of blog posts as a novel response. Nice one! We’d love to see some of their work if you’re comfortable sharing a couple of URLs too (assuming they’re public blogs).

      Thanks again, Mary!
      Kathleen

      1. I’ll be sure to share some. I was about to write it will be ages before we get to it, since we won’t start until November, but yikes–that’s only two weeks away!

        Mary

    1. Great to hear from you, Sue, and thank you for sharing the link. It will certainly be useful for students and teachers.

      The work you do with the student bloggers is incredible. Thank you for all of your work. I would encourage all teachers to check out The Student Blogging Challenge.

      Thanks,
      Kathleen

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