Using Image Prompts to Support Writing

As an immersion teacher, one of the things my students struggle with most when writing is vocabulary. We work on vocabulary constantly because learning a new language is hard! One of the other blocks they run into is the dreaded “I don’t know what to write about!”.

In my class I like to offer many different types of writing to expose them to different styles, purposes, vocabulary etc. One of the writing activities I started implementing was using visual prompts with word banks. Unsurprisingly, my students have a lot of success with this. It covers two of those writing woes that I mentioned before.

We usually do these prompts once a week. Sometimes it’s seasonal or related to a holiday or maybe it’s just some pirates on a beach because that’s fun!

So how do I run this activity?

I like to project the page under my doc cam but if you don’t have that option, maybe you can project it or just pass out the sheets and students can follow along. We go over all the vocabulary in the word bank to ensure we understand that. Next, we brainstorm other words we could use when talking about this image. I usually like to have nouns, verbs and adjectives. Unfortunately this example really just had a lot of nouns since they were brainstorming a ton of those.

Sometimes I don’t know the word and we have to look it up. This serves as a great demonstration for young learners that it’s ok not to know everything and we can find out by looking it up.

Once we’re done brainstorming, I do a reminder of writing expectations and things like capitals, periods and spacing. Then pass out their papers and they set off. Since we did so much brainstorming, there is way less “Madame, comment dit-on ______” and a lot more writing. They will still come ask me for words but if I think it’s a word others might use, I’ll go add it to the board.

Once complete, they come show me their work and we make adjustments as needed. I don’t rip it apart but I will get them to go correct things I’d expect to be done in grade 3, like capitals, plurals etc. Sometimes I’ll send them back to write more if they’re capable. Give me more details!

Not every student wants to but they are allowed to colour in the image once they have completed their writing.

Interested in trying this out in your class? I have over 100 prompts in both French and English that you students will enjoy writing about. Each prompt comes with 10 words in a word bank that will help them with their writing. Each page has two lined options, either regular lines or interlined.

Animals (savanna, jungle, garden, forest…)

Celebrations & holidays (Diwali, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, Lunar New Year, graduation…)

Seasons (fall, winter, summer, spring)

Scene variety (pirates, space, beach, ocean, camping, robots, fairy tales…)