creative writing ks3 examples

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Lesson Plan: KS3 English, creative writing

• Subject: English and MFL
• Date Posted: 12 March 2013
• View page as PDF: Download Now

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​Providing the right atmosphere can encourage students to take their creative writing to a whole new level, says Claire Sheffield…

​Providing the right atmosphere can encourage students to take their creative writing to a whole new level, says Claire Sheffield…

Today you will….

• Develop the ability to use your imagination to create a story in the gothic genre
• Learn to use ambitious vocabulary to achieve specific effects

Starting a piece of creative writing can be a source of frustration for many young people; so much so that it can lead to loss of confidence. If ideas aren’t flowing, learners can quickly switch off and give up. Creative writing lessons, therefore, need to stimulate all of the senses and inspire students. Creative writing in the gothic genre – spooky stories – offers a wonderful opportunity for just this. This is a topic that always manages to enthuse pupils and one of the most exciting aspects is that the outcome is completely different with every group. Giving students time for thinking and the creation of ideas is essential. Therefore, this plan should be seen as just a starting point; it provides the stimulus from which a number of sessions can be developed. Subsequent periods can also focus on the development of different writing skills as required by the individual needs of a group. As a way into creative writing, this opener allows learners to be independent; an environment that enables them to thrive. Most importantly, it’s a lesson that students always leave talking about!

Starter activity

Creating a spooky word wall.

Preparation is key to this lesson. For maximum impact, everything needs to be ready so that students enter the room and immediately feel a mysterious atmosphere. This can be created by closing blinds, turning off the lights, playing spooky music and displaying an image on the whiteboard of an old, decrepit, haunted-looking house (easily sourced from the internet). It is great to see students entering the room and looking around confused, wondering what is happening and therefore immediately engaged!

Ideally learners need to be seated in small table groups; this should be a buzzy lesson with lots of group discussion and sharing of ideas. As they take their seats they see on their table a map/floor plan of a house with a cross in one of the rooms; it’s one of the rooms from the house displayed on the board. This can be easily created in a word document using text boxes to create the floor plan and labelling each room. The idea is that each table will focus on a different room.

On each table an instruction card for the starter activity is also displayed. This should say something along the lines of: ‘As a group create a word wall of spooky words to describe the room you are in. Be as ambitious as possible! You have 5 minutes’. This could be completed on A3 paper or on post-it notes to stick up on the wall next to them; students will then have created their own bank of vocabulary that will help them in later parts of the lesson.

Main activities

1 developing the plot.

This lesson works well if very little is said by the teacher to the whole class. This adds to the mysterious atmosphere because students have to read and find out what to do at different stages. The teacher very much facilitates the learning in this lesson, by circulating the room, supporting and stretching groups as appropriate.

As the 5 minutes for the starter activity draws to a close, the spooky background music should be turned off and a short, shocking sound should be played. This could be a scream or a crash, for example. As this point another slide should be displayed on the board to move students onto the next stage of the lesson. This could read: ‘What has happened? Write the opening for a spooky story about a mysterious incident that has happened in the room you are in. Discuss for 5 minutes.’ Students are now using their imaginations to create a plot for their gothic story; it is important that students are encouraged to discuss and develop ideas before beginning the writing stage.

2 Going further

After around five minutes discussion, another slide can be displayed which reads: ‘Look for a clue about what has happened. You will find this somewhere near you!’ Underneath each table, students will find an envelope with a picture of a clue. This could be anything (e.g. a book or a camera). Equally, props could be placed around the room for students to find. The more unusual the better! It just gets pupils thinking more creatively. They will naturally want to talk about what they have found and start to revise their previous thinking

3 Stage three

After a few moments, the final slide of instruction can be displayed. This time, students are told: ‘Time to start writing. You have 25 minutes to use the clues so far to write the opening to a spooky story. Remember your objectives – be imaginative and use ambitious vocabulary to achieve a spooky effect.’ Spooky background music can be played throughout the writing stage. It is also important that learners have access to a thesaurus in order to locate more ambitious vocabulary.

Home learning

The lesson can be used as a starting point and developed in a number of ways… + Subsequent lessons/home learning activities could focus on developing other writing skills such as structuring a plot from beginning to end, using literary devices or using a variety of sentence structures and punctuation for effect.

+ The written work could lead into a speaking and listening lesson where students devise, rehearse and perform dramatic readings of their stories. + Students can explore a variety of gothic literature, researching different writers in the genre, reading different works and learning about the conventions of the genre. They can then develop their work to incorporate more of these conventions themselves.

After the main writing stage of this lesson, students are usually desperate to read their work out. To be able to do this in a meaningful way though, more time is usually needed, so it is appropriate to dedicate the following lesson to this. However, an opportunity to share work with others can be achieved through groups swapping their work and providing some feedback to consider for the following lesson. Questions such as those below can help students to structure their feedback in a constructive manner:

• How imaginative is the piece?
• How exciting did you find the story?
• Is there anything that does not make sense?
• How ambitious is the vocabulary? Does it achieve the desired spooky effect?
• How would you like the group to improve the piece?
• What questions can you ask the group to help them develop the piece further?

The following lesson can then begin with students considering this feedback in order to improve the work they have begun in this lesson.

Differentiation suggestions to support less able students:

• Provide a word bank or sentence starter bank.
• Provide additional resources to inspire ideas; further images or props, for example.
• Provide a wagoll (what a good one looks like) as a model of a piece of spooky writing.
• Suggestions to stretch more able students:
• Provide definitions/examples of literary devices and a challenge card asking students to ‘aim to include as many literary devices as possible.’
• Ask students to work towards a third learning objective: ‘use a variety of sentence structures for effect’ or ‘use a variety of punctuation for effect.’
• Allocate an expert to mixed ability groups who is asked to fulfil additional responsibilities as group leader.
• Provide a ‘challenging criteria’ card as a checklist of skills that more able students should aim to demonstrate.

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• Picture Perfect Lesson Plan For Ks3 English

Creative writing KS3 – Images & sticky notes lesson plan

PDF lesson plan

This creative writing KS3 lesson uses inspiring images and sticky notes to get learners producing some truly creative writing.

Often students will say ‘I don’t know what to write’. The format of this lesson eradicates that barrier to learning and creativity. Use it to teach this important skill to students of all abilities (including your mixed-ability groups).

The collaborative nature of this lesson (students read what the person before them has written) means they learn from and inspire each other.

It’s a kinesthetic creative writing KS3 lesson. Students move around using a range of resources. The strict timing element means it’s extremely fast-paced.

While getting students moving around the classroom (especially in classes where behaviour is challenging ) can be daunting, the speed of the task keeps students focused. It results in students producing some fantastic work without too much teacher talk or instruction needed.

You do need some resources, but for all the coloured sticky notes required, it is well worth the effort.

You can adapt this lesson to other subjects. This idea can even be a revision tool, where the pictures you pass around represent different topics students have already studied.

Noga Verber has taught English and drama at Chestnut Grove Academy in South London for three years. She is also a head of house and the director of the school musical. Browse more free KS3 English reading and writing lesson plans and KS3 creative writing resources  for teaching plot and setting.

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Planning and writing descriptive paragraphs

I can create a specific atmosphere by linking vocabulary choices and creating a semantic field.

Lesson details

Key learning points.

• Descriptive writing is designed create a clear atmosphere for the reader and paint a picture of an image.
• Semantic fields can be used to create that picture for the reader.
• A semantic field is a group of words or expressions that are related in meaning.
• Choose your adjectives carefully in a descriptive paragraph in order to create a semantic field.

Common misconception

You should always use the most impressive sounding words in your description.

While you should reach for ambitious words, you want to ensure that all the words you use are creating a consistent atmosphere.

Atmosphere - the feeling or sense evoked by the setting or environment.

Planning - the act of deciding how to do something.

Descriptive - describing something in an interesting and detailed way.

Semantic field - a group of words or expressions that are related in meaning.

Adjective - a word that describes or defines a noun.

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited ( 2024 ), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Starter quiz

6 questions.

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Attention-grabbing story starters

Students rank order a number of opening sentences or paragraphs from a range of short stories depending on how 'attention grabbing' they are, and then write their own opening to a story.

This is a simple but effective approach to teach KS3-4 students about the importance of starting fiction writing with an effective beginning.  

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Creative Writing Scheme of Work

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Unit of work

Last updated

29 January 2024

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Creative Writing and Short Stories - incredibly detailed scheme of work on writing skills (AO5, AO6 English Language Paper 1) that includes activities and resources for over 17 lessons! Includes differentiated activities to three levels (core, support and more able), homework activities and more. What’s more, it’s completely FREE to download! Topics covered include language, structure, vocabulary, genre, organisation, cohesion, settings, characters, themes and more!

To work in conjunction with our Creative Writing KS3 pack: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/creative-writing-12404849

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A bundle is a package of resources grouped together to teach a particular topic, or a series of lessons, in one place.

Creative Writing

Creative writing complete scheme of work pack. Designed for KS3 students but easily adaptable for GCSE English Language students, the pack includes resources on both narrative and descriptive writing. Includes: 1) Creative writing introduction 2) Characters - developing mystery and mysterious figures focused on The Signal-Man 3) Plot development and structure lesson around The Signalman 4) Structure and endings lesson exploring The Signalman and other examples 5) Speech punctuation and character development lesson 6) Themes and motifs lesson 7) Genre lesson exploring westerns, their conventions and how students can adapt genre themselves 8) Setting and descriptive writing lesson, exploring structure and vocabulary 9) Vocabulary improvement lesson with a focus on character 10) Pathetic fallacy and personification 11) Short story analysis - plot, structure, narrative voice 12) Short story structure analysis 13) Creative writing punctuation workshop with differentiated worksheets 14) Assessment planning lesson 15) Assessment review lesson 16) Short story analysis of language - Desiree's Baby 17) Short story analysis - structure 18) Six week homework pack 19) Six week scheme of work document

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