When we think of Thanksgiving, most of us think of food. Pumpkin pies, mashed potatoes, roasted corn, and a plump stuffed turkey—it’s enough to make your mouth water just imagining it. But Thanksgiving isn’t just a feast. It’s also a creative cornucopia of ideas ripe for harvesting! So before your little turkeys take off for the long weekend, be sure to celebrate in the classroom with a fun Thanksgiving-themed creative writing prompt your 3rd grade students can really sink their teeth into.
Prompt #1: “Imagine you have never heard of Thanksgiving and are celebrating it for the first time. Describe what you see.”
Prompt #1: “Imagine you have never heard of Thanksgiving and are celebrating it for the first time. Describe what you see.”
It’s easy to forget that Thanksgiving is not a universal holiday. While some other countries do celebrate it and similar holidays, many others do not. This writing prompt asks your students to put themselves in the shoes of someone who has never seen or heard of such a holiday before. What would they notice about our traditions and festivities? What would seem strange to them, and what would they enjoy about it? It’s a great way to get your students thinking not only about other cultures and perspectives, but about the little things they have to be thankful for this November.
PROJECT IDEA
To more deeply explore the idea of writing from other points of view, ask your students to write their responses as journal entries. They can even write as people from specific cultures—what, for example, would someone from Russia think of Thanksgiving? What other holiday from their own culture could a Japanese girl or boy compare it to? After writing, ask them to draw illustrations to go with their journal entries. Collect and publish their work in a thoughtful Thanksgiving classbook that embraces perspectives from all over the globe!
Prompt #2: “Besides thanking someone out loud, how can you express gratitude?”
Saying “thank you” and truly meaning it are two very different things. This Thanksgiving writing prompt asks your 3rd grade students to be more thoughtful about giving thanks. How, besides simply saying the words, can a person convey gratitude? Perhaps a handwritten note will suffice in some cases, while in others, perhaps returning a kind gesture with one of your own is more appropriate. Encourage your students to think of as many examples as they can—and try putting a few into practice!
PROJECT IDEA
If two heads are better than one, a whole class full of heads is sure to come up with some truly great ideas. Get even more out of this writing assignment by making it a collaborative effort. Ask your students to brainstorm together to come up with as many ideas as they can. Then, ask them to each choose three to write about and explain in detail. Next, have each student draw a three-panel comic to accompany their response, dedicating one panel to each expression of thanks they wrote about. Finally, publish their ideas in a classbook they’ll be thankful to have for many years to come.
Prompt #3: “Imagine a pilgrim from the first Thanksgiving feast has time traveled to the future—right to your dinner table! How does he (or she) react?”
Hint at a bit of history this November with this Thanksgiving writing prompt about a time-traveling pilgrim. Similar to the first prompt, this assignment also asks your students to write from a very different point of view from their own, but with a different focus: instead of comparing cultures, they’ll be comparing the past to the present. Ask them to think about what has changed about Thanksgiving over the years. Do we eat different foods, or prepare them differently, than their fictional pilgrim would have? What technologies do we have now that he or she would not recognize? Would they be upset about the changes—or delighted that the spirit of giving thanks is still alive, even hundreds of years later?
PROJECT IDEA
While perfectly suitable for a short-response journal prompt, this Thanksgiving assignment is also an ideal story starter for a larger narrative writing project. Instead of answering the question with direct responses, ask your students to generate fully-fledged stories, using brainstorming worksheets to help them define the beginning, middle, and end of their pilgrim’s journey through time. Ask them to draw a picture of their pilgrim at their modern-day feast. Finally, publish their stories in a unique Thanksgiving classbook with a sci-fi twist!
Writing Creatively and Giving Thanks
Regardless of whether we’re writing about other cultures, other time periods or simply other ways to show appreciation, one thing I’m grateful for every November is the chance to celebrate two Thanksgivings—one with my family, of course, but also one with my students. After all, it doesn’t matter when you celebrate it or even how you celebrate it, if you do at all. What matters is recognizing all the wonderful things in our lives that we have to be grateful for, and learning to not only be thankful but to express it—not just once a year, but every day, with both our words and our actions.
Me? I’m thankful for my talented young authors. Their generous hearts and limitless creative potential will never cease to amaze and inspire me, just as I hope I inspire them in turn.
At Studentreasures, we’re grateful to give students all over the country the opportunity to become published authors. To show our appreciation for your participation, every book we publish is automatically entered for the chance to win a $5,000 grant in our National Book Challenge. Check out how to start your own Thanks & Giving project to learn more!
