Writing activity
— Stone Soup is excited to announce our new contest series! We are now accepting submissions for our short story, poetry, and artwork prizes. We will select a single winner—one story,...
— Write a how-to article about something you don’t know how to do. This could be something real that you just haven’t done before (e.g. writing a dissertation) or something made-up...
— Go to a safe place outdoors, sit somewhere, and close your eyes. Spend several minutes listening for all the sounds you can hear, and pay close attention to what you...
— Write fan fiction for a story you love, but change a background detail, like the setting or time period.
— Come up with an annoying habit and write about a world where this is a good thing! Maybe you don’t like it when people pick their noses. Why not write...
— Choose one of these proverbs, and write a story in which the opposite is true: “A stitch in time saves nine” “The early bird catches the worm” “A problem shared...
— At our most recent Book Club meeting on May 29, the Stone Soup Book Club read Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds (you can read about...
— ‘Tom Green,’ a story by 10-year-old Zahra Batteh, is a classic redemption tale. Tom Green, a horrible, spoiled, lazy young man loses all his money and privilege, and through a series...
— The cover image for the March 2021 issue of Stone Soup is incredibly striking. Aiyla Syed’s photograph “Sensation” (pictured above) perfectly captures a moment that feels familiar and playful in...
— Emma McKinny’s story “Windsong,” is about going to a performance of Dr. Atomic, an opera by John Adams with libretto by Peter Sellers. Her father is the lead singer. You can...
— The story by 11-year-old Nate Sheehan, “Conrad and Fate” is about prejudice based on a student’s ethnicity. This story, set in the late 1950s is about prejudice against Japanese people,...
— There are a lot of science-based ideas expressed in everyday speech. This activity challenges you to identify some of those expressions, think about what they mean, research them to find...
— Writers often hear the advice: “show, don’t tell.” But what does it mean? Read and study a story from the Stone Soup archives to see the power of this technique,...
— The most remarkable part of Lena's story as a demonstration of the power of dialogue is the last quarter, where four characters respond to a traumatic event. This section, beginning...
— The Mother’s Day Gift by Mathew Thompson, age 11, Dallas, Oregon The Clay Pot by Naomi Wendland, age 12, Lusaka, Zambia These two stories deal with the same problem: the...
— This writing activity is based on a very funny Kurt Vonnegut lecture on the shape of stories. In this project, students learn to develop compelling narratives by graphing the plots....
— This writing activity is built around 11-year-old Ella Staats’ story, “My Mother’s Little Girl‘” published in Stone Soup in September/October 2012. Read the story and then work on your project,...
— Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of the the greatest novelists to have written in English. Her novels are still widely read and have been adapted into movies and television series. Jane...
— Stream of consciousness can be an effective writing style to use when you have a character who sees and thinks very differently from the other characters. This project is inspired...
— Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing and Art Activity An island of one’s own… fields and forests and streams… a well-stocked kitchen with stove and refrigerator… riding bareback on a stallion,...