Journaling is a useful way to get students to write without feeling the pressure of an official assignment. Create a schoolwide journaling unit. Have teachers in each classroom distribute blank notebooks and encourage students to fill them with their thoughts and ideas. Scholars of writing education, such as Peter Elbow, advocate a technique called "free writing," in which students write for a set period, writing down anything that comes into their heads. This can be a useful technique to get students writing if they feel stuck or if you're just beginning a unit. You can also provide students with prompts for their journals such as "What did you do on your summer vacation?" Ask students to volunteer to share parts of their journals out loud or showcase journals in a display at the end of the unit.
One way to introduce poetry to elementary school students is to give them pictures and ask them to describe them. For this unit, have teachers collect pictures from magazines, catalogs, the Internet, even postcards. Then, allow students to chose one picture each on which to base a poem. You can give them a different prompt for each line of the poem or simply tell them to write about what they see and then help them to divide their writing into different lines. Create a schoolwide display, placing the poems next to their respective pictures.
Collaborative storytelling allows students to learn the basics of storytelling while also stretching their imaginations and building community within the school. In an individual classroom, students might create a folding story. One student begins the story by writing the first line, then passes to the next student who writes the second line, the paper is then folded over so that only the second line is visible to the third student who writes the third line, folding the paper so that only that line is visible to the next student. This continues until each student has added a line. Then the story is read aloud. A giant schoolwide story could be created by passing the story along through each classroom, each student adding onto the previous line, until the whole school has participated. The story could then be read at an assembly or made into a giant poster for display.
This activity allows students to respond to a book they've read in groups. Instead of having each student write a book report, have them write an advertisement for the book. Assign different parts of the advertisement and have students divide up the work. Perhaps two students will work on writing a jingle for the book while three others write a script for the advertisement. When students have finished writing their advertisements, have them perform them for their classes. Each classroom votes on their favorite, which is then performed at a schoolwide assembly.