Explains nine methods for developing ideas for writing, including freewriting, brainstorming, clustering/mapping, maintaining a personal journal, responding to a text, maintaining a response journal, responding to a specific assignment,...

Brainstorming has long been a useful tool for the development of new ideas. This article explains what brainstorming is and ways you can use it to enhance your own creative thinking skills.

This resource explains brainstorming and gives a sample idea list generated from brainstorming.

This handout describes brainstorming as " taking advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain's energies into a 'storm.'" Learn how to use brainstorming techniques to gather ideas before you begin a project or to...

The success of collaborative brainstorming can only be successful given the right circumstances. Heed these 3 warnings to facilitate high-quality ideas.

Contains plans for a poetry lesson that asks students to write poems after brainstorming metaphors and other ideas as a group. Ideas are groups by different themes, like letters of the alphabet. In addition to objectives and standards,...

In this lesson plan, recommendations from Ralph Fletcher's book called Live Writing will be used as a teacher reference. Students will write introductions to three different stories in their writer's notebooks, but each type of conflict...

This is a very informative page on the creative process, written by an educator. There are links to books, creative thinking patterns, brainstorming activities, and how to inspire creativity, to name a few.

As students learn about the creation of biodomes, they are introduced to the steps of the engineering design process, including guidelines for brainstorming. Students learn how engineers are involved in the design and construction of...

In this instructional activity, SuperHero ABC, a book written by Bob McLeod, and Meanwhile, a book by Jules Feiffer, are used as mentor texts. Students will work in groups and create lists of unique superhero powers that start with...

In this stills collage adapted from the National Science Teachers Association/Craftsman Young Inventors Awards, see several inventions by students in grades 4-7 and read about some of the challenges they faced during the design process.

Contains plans for four 50-minute lessons that ask students to use their five senses for poetry prewriting. In addition to student objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to PDF handouts and sites used in the...

For this lesson, students will listen to the book called The Grapes of Math by Greg Tang, but before reading, students will listen for the "different" way to solve the problem on each page. After reading, students will focus on one page...

Enemy Pie by Derek Munson makes readers think seriously about this question: "What if I had to spend an entire day with someone with whom I had a conflict?" This question presents young writers with a great launching pad for developing...