5 spooky writing activities for Halloween

The Creepy Castle | Creepy Character Profiles

Through the Keyhole | Persuasive Fast Starts Challenge

Spooky Stories | Frankenstories Writing Games

1. The Creepy Castle writing prompt

Perfect for all year levels, this fun writing prompt will provide lots of fun this Halloween. This activity encourages students to use descriptive writing to show rather than tell (Step 5).

• As a class, brainstorm a list of possible spooky characters (e.g. a vampire, a mummy, Frankenstein).
• Ask students to form pairs and pick a character from the class list, then brainstorm ideas to create a profile of their chosen character using template.
• Ask students to write a brief description of their spooky character based on the ideas in the profile.

• Ask students to imagine they are looking through a keyhole. Is it a haunted house? A goblin’s grotto? A dungeon?
• Students can use the template to draw what they see, then write about it below. Don’t forget to capture the reader’s attention with a Sizzling Start.

4. Persuasive Fast Starts Challenge

This is one of the best ways to increase your students’ engagement and bring the fun into your writing lessons.

• Here are the topics:
  • Trick-or-treating is dangerous
  • Ghosts do exist
  • Vampires vs werewolves
  • Halloween is better than Christmas
  • Being scared is fun
• Set a 60 second timer.
• Students write a Sizzling Start for each topic. After going through each topic, every student should have 5 different Sizzling Starts.
• Ask students to share their favourite Sizzling Start in groups of 3–4. This will help them generate more ideas, develop concepts and learn from each other.

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5. Spooky Stories

Using random words as the basis for a story is a great way to spark students’ creativity.

• Get each student to write a word they associate with spooky stories on a strip of paper.
• Place the strips of paper into a hat.
• Ask each student to pull a strip of paper from the hat.
• Get students to form groups of three and work together to write their own spooky story based on their words.

For example: attic, moon, bat.

‘She pushed open the attic door. It made a long, high-pitched creaking sound. She slowly tiptoed into the darkroom and tried the light switch. No luck. Something rustled in the corner of the room, disturbed by her entrance.

‘I hope it’s a mouse,’ she shuddered.

The moon shone its faint light through the small window. Slowly, a shadow began to appear: large wings, a pointed head. A bat, bigger than any ordinary bat.’

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