Making magic with words

Wearing all black today? Hair looking a bit odd, or is that a funny hat?

No, you’re not in Melbourne for Fashion Week – it’s Halloween and the costumes are out again!

Before you groan – some of us do love the dress-ups and spooky stories – we just wanted to share some of our recent writing prompts with themes that would fit into Halloween week.

Here are four fantastical picture writing prompts for you, and an additional activity below:

Writing Prompts

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An activity idea for Step 5

If your students enjoy the Seven Steps Writing Prompt about the talking dog, why not get them to write about imaginary magical pets? They could write adoption agency profiles for their own fantastical pet.

To help them practise Step 5: Show, Don’t Tell, direct students to write adoption profiles that reveal to the reader what each magic pet might be like at home. (For example: ‘Perry is a typical young dragon, full of energy and spark. His new owners will need to be experienced in dragon training and should have their own fire-fighting equipment…’)

Here are lots more examples here to get students started:

• Quirkbooks: Our favourite magical pets in literature
• Pottermore’s Guide to Wizarding World Pets
• The Magical Animal Adoption Agency

Looking for more?

View more free Seven Steps Writing Prompts for narrative, persuasive and informative text types.