This A+ Writing Prompts app also includes:
Shake it up! Shake your tablet to bring up a unique writing prompt for journaling or blogging with your class. Shake again and a new one appears. Prompts can come from different categories (sketches, scenes, texts, words, news) to help learners overcome writer's block.
Concepts
Additional Tags
App Overview
A+ Writing Prompts is the answer to your inspiration needs! With just a shake or a swipe, you'll receive a prompt to write about. Don't like it? Shake again! All the categories are randomized to create oodles of unique prompts and writing opportunities for learners.
Includes:
- 1,250 scene elements (place, character, object, mood, smell, weather, etc.) to start stories
- 2,000 words to inspire writing
- 460 sketches, which show up three at a time paired with a genre and a type of writing
- 600 text prompts—quotes and phrases to get you started
- 60 colors that you can turn on and off
- 80 genres
- Option to search the news for a headline and article
Other Features:
- Save favorite prompts
- Writing paper included allows for sharing and saving of ideas and prompts; you can e-mail a note to yourself or someone else
- Camera function allows you to take photos of the current prompt
- Pictures and colored icons included
- Change various settings, such as sounds, number of words per prompt, and colors
Curator Rating
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Adherence to task
The app can provide you with almost endless writing prompts in different formats.
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Worth the money
At around five dollars, the price is pushing toward expensive; however, this app could easily provide you with a year's worth of entertaining writing ideas.
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Fun factor
Kids will enjoy the zany combinations that the app generates and enjoy writing in the process.
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Scaffolding of learning
You can tap the question mark to see how to use the app. There is plenty of information here, but some of the paragraphs can prove a bit dense.
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User safety
Created with students in mind, the app is full of age-appropriate material.
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Control and feedback
It would be nice if individuals could log in and type directly into the app and store their writing. As it is, they can e-mail notes to themselves, and the prompts are very customizable.
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How techie do I need to be?
Novice
Instructional Ideas
- Display the daily prompt as students enter the classroom each day to get their brains jump-started
- Use as a small-group writing center during English language arts
- Make a "choice" option for when learners finish work early
Classroom Considerations
If you are using only one tablet in your classroom, marking favorites and saving notes will not be customized for each pupil. The ideal would be to have at least a small set of tablets that they could share and save work on. You can also have individuals e-mail notes to themselves that they later delete from the app so that they have a record of their work.
The shaking can be a bit finicky. Luckily, you can also choose to swipe. If you don't like the sound the app produces when you shake, you can easily turn if off in the settings menu.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Provides several different categories and views to choose from; easy to mix it up
- Prompts are customizable and inspiring
Cons
- While fun, this may not be something you would want to use every day
- The app would be improved with the option to type directly into the prompt area and save work for later use