How Can Your Students Easily Generate Writing Topics?

I just spent a day in a writing workshop.  Our presenter discussed Ralf Fletcher’s new book Marshfield Dreams:  When I Was a Kid about his childhood memories.  He described how Fletcher wrote different short stories about his childhood in this book, which would be great for mentoring students in their own writing.  Since the pieces are short in Fletcher’s book, they would mirror the length of a short story that a child may write.  What I especially liked about this workshop is when the presenter had us to draw a map of our childhood homes and neighborhoods with all the places that were important to us.  First, the presenter showed us a map copy of Ralf Fletcher’s childhood neighborhood home which is in Marshfield Dreams so that we could see an example (great idea to model for kids as well).  Then the presenter had us to put an F for fear next to a place that we thought was scary.  We put an S next to a place that was secret.  We put an L next to a place where we learned something or did something for the first time and so on.  Then the presenter had us write a short piece using one of the places on our childhood map.  I thought this was a great way to lead us into writing especially because kids like to draw pictures.