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Prompt 1 - If you could invent something new, what product would you develop? Use specific details to explain why this invention is needed. Model Essay Prompt 2 - Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? All students should be required to study art and music in secondary school. Use specific reasons to support your answer. Tutorial Screencast - Learner Model Screencast - Model Essay |
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...more writing prompts for The Source of Creativity!
About Me - Describe how you like to spend your free time (or time when you don't have anything scheduled). What is it and why do you like to spend your time this way.
Descriptive - Describe a person that you know who you consider to be very creative. What do they do that is creative? How did they develop their creative ability. Narrative - Tell about a situation or event where you were faced with a problem that required creativity. What was the situation, how did you use creativity and what was the result? Use specific details and examples to support your answer. Problem / Solution - You are working on a group project. The initial feedback from your superiors is that the group's proposal lacks creativity. What would you do to encourage the group towards more creativity? |
Abstract - How valued is creativity in your culture? Use specific details and examples to support your answer.
Hypothesis - A parent makes a decision for their child to spend summer vacation at an art camp. Discuss the short term and long term consequences of this decision. Support an Opinion - Do you agree or disagree with this statement. Girls are more creative than boys. Use specific details and examples to support your opinion. |
Note for Teachers - The purpose of our 30 minute timed writing prompts is to engage learners in a carefully crafted exercise that will improve fluency of both thought and pen. Quality writing effectively expresses how a person feels, or thinks, in response to any given topic. This doesn't just happen, but requires consistent and meaningful practice (time on task)... the aim and focus of our Daily Writing Prompt website. A guide to constructing a 5 paragraph essay, along with a model passage for students to study and dissect can also be found on this page.
Model Essay - Creativity leading to improvements to how we interact with our physical world is part of what distinguishes humans from other animals. There have been many society-altering inventions such as the computer, automobile, and a world of other gadgets that improve our lives. Included in these are devices that improve the functioning of our bodies, like medical devices and health equipment. Given unlimited knowledge and resources, I would invent a pair of glasses that when worn eliminated the need for sleep by aggregating the microseconds of rest you get when you blink thus allowing for drastic improvements to the length of the productive day; increasing health through increased activity and rest and decreasing fatigue related accidents.
Sleeping less would free up time to be more productive. Even those with a small sleep need still lose precious hours each day to sleep. While this invention wouldn’t eliminate the option to lounge for an extended period each day, it would drastically reduce the requirement. Imagine what you would do with 6-8 more hours in your day? Likely most people would invest the time in themselves—pursing professional accomplishments, freeing time for hobbies, and more opportunity to connect with loved ones. In addition to using the time available to improve oneself, this time could also be redirected towards service. The largest barrier to volunteering is a lack of time; with these glasses, people could invest themselves more fully in living a better life without negative physical consequences.
Sleeping less while resting more could increase health. While sleep is essential for normal body function, this invention would allow many people to simultaneously get more rest than they normally receive while being more active. Being more rested and engaging in more physical activity would benefit both body and mind. As mentioned above adding the hours to a person’s day would naturally increase the amount of activities that they engaged in. Simultaneously this artificial rest is occurring throughout the day parallel to productivity so the human body would be able to perform at a higher level. For example, athletes would be able to workout longer because as they are exerting themselves they continue to rest and replenish their energy stores. Ultimately most would find this invention to result in positive health gains.
Reductions in fatigue would also relate in lower levels of accidents and fatality. Drowsiness results in auto accidents, work place accidents and other potential life-threatening events. As drowsy individuals engaged in the activities above they would actually be getting incremental increases in their rest. Consider the long haul trucker. He has 4 more hours of driving to complete his assignment, but he’s starting to feel drowsy. Without an invention like this he has two options stop and rest delaying completion or continuing to drive with perhaps very serious consequences for him and those around him. Contrarily with the glasses, he could continue forward while geting the rest that he needed to sustain him. Decreasing the number of drowsiness related accidents could save thousands of lives and livelihoods each year.
Through keeping people safe, healthy and productive, these glasses could drastically change the world we live in. The consequences would have both short-term and long-term consequences. For the individual, the potential for self-fulfillment increases as they are able to do more without feeling worse. Personal health, both physical and mental, would also be more easily achieved. Communities would benefit from the increases in economic gains through increased productivity and reductions in liabilities. Society will be able to re-envision the way it invests the hours in its day and perhaps discover that without needing to sleep there is more than enough time to live well and get along.
Sleeping less would free up time to be more productive. Even those with a small sleep need still lose precious hours each day to sleep. While this invention wouldn’t eliminate the option to lounge for an extended period each day, it would drastically reduce the requirement. Imagine what you would do with 6-8 more hours in your day? Likely most people would invest the time in themselves—pursing professional accomplishments, freeing time for hobbies, and more opportunity to connect with loved ones. In addition to using the time available to improve oneself, this time could also be redirected towards service. The largest barrier to volunteering is a lack of time; with these glasses, people could invest themselves more fully in living a better life without negative physical consequences.
Sleeping less while resting more could increase health. While sleep is essential for normal body function, this invention would allow many people to simultaneously get more rest than they normally receive while being more active. Being more rested and engaging in more physical activity would benefit both body and mind. As mentioned above adding the hours to a person’s day would naturally increase the amount of activities that they engaged in. Simultaneously this artificial rest is occurring throughout the day parallel to productivity so the human body would be able to perform at a higher level. For example, athletes would be able to workout longer because as they are exerting themselves they continue to rest and replenish their energy stores. Ultimately most would find this invention to result in positive health gains.
Reductions in fatigue would also relate in lower levels of accidents and fatality. Drowsiness results in auto accidents, work place accidents and other potential life-threatening events. As drowsy individuals engaged in the activities above they would actually be getting incremental increases in their rest. Consider the long haul trucker. He has 4 more hours of driving to complete his assignment, but he’s starting to feel drowsy. Without an invention like this he has two options stop and rest delaying completion or continuing to drive with perhaps very serious consequences for him and those around him. Contrarily with the glasses, he could continue forward while geting the rest that he needed to sustain him. Decreasing the number of drowsiness related accidents could save thousands of lives and livelihoods each year.
Through keeping people safe, healthy and productive, these glasses could drastically change the world we live in. The consequences would have both short-term and long-term consequences. For the individual, the potential for self-fulfillment increases as they are able to do more without feeling worse. Personal health, both physical and mental, would also be more easily achieved. Communities would benefit from the increases in economic gains through increased productivity and reductions in liabilities. Society will be able to re-envision the way it invests the hours in its day and perhaps discover that without needing to sleep there is more than enough time to live well and get along.
Model Essay - Many successful individuals credit their success to the impact of their early exposure to art and music. As a result many people have raised the question if these types of classes wouldn't be beneficial to require of all students. Some would say that absolutely this would be desirable. Others wonder if the time in a required art class wouldn't be better invested in other courses. While certainly an option for art and music education should continue in secondary schools, all students should not be required to study art or music because this requirement would change the motivational landscape of the existing art classes, require resources and curricular space that are not available.
Required courses do not filter out unmotivated students. With art classes being elective, the class ends up being composed of students that for one reason or the other want to be there. Contrastingly if it were required, each class will have to include at least a few and possibly many students who are not interested in the subject matter. These apathetic students may not only disengage in the course, they could be both a distraction and hindrance to students that otherwise enjoy the class. Some of the core subjects that are widely required experience this problem. Math or English teachers report that their lower level required classes are different in their culture than perhaps an optional accelerated class. When all of the students want to be enrolled and engaged in the subject matter, this consistent enthusiasm creates a culture where learning can best occur.
Music and art courses are resource intensive. These classes need different spaces and different fixed classroom resources than other subject areas; this will include perhaps a different layout in the classroom, certainly different materials and sometimes expensive instruments or equipment. Adding required art classes to mandatory requirements will drastically increase the number of students that enroll in these classes and as a result will require a significant expense to the school's budget. Complicating the matter further, some of the resources that these classes require are fixed and limited. Take the theatre for example. There is a limit to the number of classes that could be added when the school only has one stage. Adding the additional fixed resources and arguably even more expensive human resources must be considered before proceeding with plans to make these courses mandatory.
There is not curricular space for art and music classes to be added to the existing requirements. In order for something to be added, something must be taken away or the length of school day would need to be increased. Even those most ardent supporters of increasing the number of students enrolled in art or music will find deciding what to eliminate in order to add the art requirement a very tricky issue. For many schools, there is a single space for elective class choice. This is where those interested students opt to take an art class. However those who aren't choosing to take a class may choose to take a second language class or an applied technology class. If the art class requirement extends to all of the students, in place of an elective space, the resulting lack of choice may lead students to have diminished opportunities to grow and create frustration in areas of previous autonomy and enjoyment.
Simply not having room or necessary resources and wanting to preserve the culture of choice provides reasons against requiring all secondary school students to enroll in art and music classes. However the question of how to better engage students in areas of creativity should be a high priority. Other ways in which a school could direct actions that increase art exposure would be to explore how the benefits of arts education could be more effectively communicated to students and parents. Also extracurricular or municipal arts programs could be invested in and thus provide out of school options for youth to further their art education. Also society should recognize that full achievement in the arts has rarely been a matter of systems but of committed individuals who autonomously pursue their passions.
Required courses do not filter out unmotivated students. With art classes being elective, the class ends up being composed of students that for one reason or the other want to be there. Contrastingly if it were required, each class will have to include at least a few and possibly many students who are not interested in the subject matter. These apathetic students may not only disengage in the course, they could be both a distraction and hindrance to students that otherwise enjoy the class. Some of the core subjects that are widely required experience this problem. Math or English teachers report that their lower level required classes are different in their culture than perhaps an optional accelerated class. When all of the students want to be enrolled and engaged in the subject matter, this consistent enthusiasm creates a culture where learning can best occur.
Music and art courses are resource intensive. These classes need different spaces and different fixed classroom resources than other subject areas; this will include perhaps a different layout in the classroom, certainly different materials and sometimes expensive instruments or equipment. Adding required art classes to mandatory requirements will drastically increase the number of students that enroll in these classes and as a result will require a significant expense to the school's budget. Complicating the matter further, some of the resources that these classes require are fixed and limited. Take the theatre for example. There is a limit to the number of classes that could be added when the school only has one stage. Adding the additional fixed resources and arguably even more expensive human resources must be considered before proceeding with plans to make these courses mandatory.
There is not curricular space for art and music classes to be added to the existing requirements. In order for something to be added, something must be taken away or the length of school day would need to be increased. Even those most ardent supporters of increasing the number of students enrolled in art or music will find deciding what to eliminate in order to add the art requirement a very tricky issue. For many schools, there is a single space for elective class choice. This is where those interested students opt to take an art class. However those who aren't choosing to take a class may choose to take a second language class or an applied technology class. If the art class requirement extends to all of the students, in place of an elective space, the resulting lack of choice may lead students to have diminished opportunities to grow and create frustration in areas of previous autonomy and enjoyment.
Simply not having room or necessary resources and wanting to preserve the culture of choice provides reasons against requiring all secondary school students to enroll in art and music classes. However the question of how to better engage students in areas of creativity should be a high priority. Other ways in which a school could direct actions that increase art exposure would be to explore how the benefits of arts education could be more effectively communicated to students and parents. Also extracurricular or municipal arts programs could be invested in and thus provide out of school options for youth to further their art education. Also society should recognize that full achievement in the arts has rarely been a matter of systems but of committed individuals who autonomously pursue their passions.