Free Writing Prompt Printable – Personal Essays
At the beginning of the year, many students are asked to do personal or narrative essays… my kids are writing personal essays as well!
I came across this writing resource that has 500 writing prompts and felt like it was such a great writing resource, I wanted to share it with you. It’s a free printable. These are generally for older students, but below I’ll also add in the link for the Free Journal Writing Prompts that I made for the kids when they were younger.
The general writing prompt themes include
- Childhood Memories
- Coming of Age
- Family
- Community and Home
- Personality
- Overcoming Adversity
- Gender and Sexuality
- Morality and Religion
- Role Models
- Technology and Video Games
- The Internet
- Social Media
- Music
- Movies, Theater, Television
- Reading, Writing and Fine Arts
- School and Teachers
- School and Social Environment
- Work and Careers
- Sports, Exercise and Games
- Travel
- Looks, Fashion and Health
- Shopping and Driving
- Food and Eating
- Holiday, Seasons, Weather and Weekends
- Beliefs, Politics and Current Events
- If Only
There are 10 to 20 writing prompt ideas for each theme.
Actually, I found an updated version after I created the image, so bonus… you’ll actually get 650 Writing Prompts, but I’m too lazy to update the image I just made to go along with this post! Lol!!
I printed out a copy for my kids and they are selecting one prompt under a different theme. Anyway, for those of you who use a Writing Workshop model or who are using a writing curriculum loosely (as we are) I thought this might be helpful!
I did not put together this writing prompt set, but wanted to share this fabulous resource!
This pdf is courtesy of the New York Times and the Learning Network.
Hope it’s helpful! ~Liesl
Click here for the Free Printable Narrative and Personal Essay – Writing Prompts
There is also a similar pdf set for Argumentative Writing Prompts. It is also free to download. Click here for the other free printable: 401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing.
On a related note, I have have a Free Journal Writing Prompts set that I made for the kids when they were younger. You’ll find that here:
40 Journal Writing Prompts (Free Printable)
I also highly recommend the Amazing Writing Prompts – Homeschool Edition. (affiliate link) This e-book was written by a fellow homeschool Mom. I purchased it a couple of weeks ago and my daughter *LOVES* these prompts at the moment!! She’s doing several a day.
You might be interested in this new 35-page Writing Resource Packet: 5 Tips for Helping Kids to Write
This was something I made last year for the kids. This printable is also free.
Essay Writing Strategies & Free Writing and Grammar Checklists
Do you want to learn more about starting your own Homeschool Writing Workshop? Here are some related posts:
- Creating a Homeschool Writing Workshop – Post #1 — How/Why we needed a change in our writing program
- Creating a Homeschool Writing Workshop – Post #2: Creating a Writing Workshop Area and Materials to Have on Hand
- Creating a Writing Workshop Post #3: This post is about Mini-Lessons during writing time, mentor texts and includes reviews of 8 or 9 writing books that you might find helpful.
- Writing Resource Pack: This is a post about the 30-page pack I made for our writing workshop. Reference pages on the 6 +1 Wri ting Traits, Mini-Lessons, the types of writing, creating a powerful beginning, techniques for ending a story/paper, and so forth. (These writing resources are free to download.)
- Writing Workshop: Dr. Seuss Style: The kids and I had fun writing in the style of Dr. Seuss!
- Biography Research Paper Resource Pack
- Practical Pointers for Working with a Reluctant Writer (or any Writer)
- Writing Activity to Spark Kids’ Imagination!
- 40 Journal Writing Prompts (Free Printable)
- Animal Portfolio Project: writing, art and geography activities that go with any animals… With many activities to choose from. Writing activities include both fiction and non-fiction suggestions such as
- Write a speech or a letter to the president on why your animal needs protection in the wild.
- Menu: Create a humorous menu at a restaurant where your animals would like to eat.
- WWII Portfolio Project
- Writing Workshop Rules! Why the Writing Workshop continues to work so well in our homeschool.
Mini-Lessons to Use in a Writing Workshop (in any order):
- Writing Workshop Mini-Lesson: Rules for Writing and the Story Writing Process — Have your kids read the Plot Chicken? We started our Writing Workshop this year off with this book. What a great buk, buk!! In fact, I liked it so much that I created a chicken writing rules printable to go along with the book!
- What makes a good book or story?
- Make your story come alive with details and description.
- Creating Interesting Characters
- Story Openings: Set the mood or feeling of your story
- Gathering story ideas from your own life
- Alliteration and more
- Adding Details Exercise Don’t miss this one, the kids LOVED this activity!!
- Writing Workshop: Conflict in Literature (Man vs. Man, Man vs. Self, etc)
- Writing Workshop Discussion Questions
- Writing Workshop Mini-Lesson: Rules for Writing and the Story Writing Process
- Writing Scary Stories
- Writing: Literacy Depth and Complexity Icons and More
If you found this helpful, I’d love to hear from you over on our Homeschool Den Facebook Page. Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter! Be sure to check out what’s available in Our Store! ~Liesl
See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page! Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter. You might also want to check out some of our resources pages above (such as our Science, Language Arts, or History Units Resource Pages) which have links to dozens of posts. You might want to join our free Homeschool Den Chat Facebook group. Don’t forget to check out Our Store as well. 
Again, if you are interested in joining our Homeschool Den Newsletter, feel free to subscribe here:
Happy Homeschooling!
~Liesl
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
