Black History Month Writing Prompts and Story Cards

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Twenty trading-card-style figures from Black history — including Bessie Coleman, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Jackie Robinson, Madam C.J. Walker, and Rosa Parks — pair with a SWBST (Somebody-Wants-But-So-Then) graphic organizer and a fill-in-the-blank sentence starter so students generate an original short story about one of the historical figures. A teacher and student version of an eight-category creative-writing rubric (basic story elements, organization, vocabulary, capitalization, spelling, punctuation, neatness, and illustration) scores the finished piece, and optional handouts supply 100-word reference lists of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions plus editing and revision checklists. Because the character set and organizer can be recombined in different pairings across the school year, a teacher can reuse the same packet for multiple writing sessions rather than a single one-off prompt.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Student can plan an original short story using the Somebody-Wants-But-So-Then story structure.
Student can incorporate a chosen Black historical figure into a fictional or biographical narrative.
Student can revise a draft against a checklist covering spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

Teaching tips

Decide in advance whether students will use Option 1 (figure as a secondary character in a fictional story) or Option 2 (figure as the main character in a fact-based story), since the sentence-starter template changes meaning depending on which is chosen.
Hand out the 100-word noun/verb/adjective/adverb lists to students who need vocabulary support before drafting, rather than after.
Use the teacher rubric to pre-teach the eight scoring categories so students know what 'excellent' looks like before they start writing.

Skills covered

Narrative story generation — students use the SWBST framework (Somebody-Wants-But-So-Then) to plan a short story built around a chosen Black historical figure.
Descriptive sentence construction — students complete a fill-in-the-blank sentence frame using a noun, verb, adverb, and adjective to introduce their chosen character.
Self- and peer-editing — students apply a checklist covering spelling, capitalization, and punctuation before submitting their final piece.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What is the difference between using the character cards as 'Option 1' versus 'Option 2' in this resource?

In Option 1, the historical figure is a secondary character students write about in a fictional or self-insert story; in Option 2, the same figure becomes the main character, and the story instead retells the figure's real actions rather than an invented plot.

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Curriculum

Standards, concepts & topics

Standards

CCSS.W.3.5 — With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grade 3 on page 29.)
CCSS.L.3.2 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. a. Capitalize appropriate words in titles. b. Use commas in addresses. c. Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue. d. Form and use possessives. e. Use conventional spelling for high-frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words (e.g., sitting, smiled, cries, happiness). f. Use spelling patterns and generalizations (e.g., word families, position-based spellings, syllable patterns, ending rules, meaningful word parts) in writing words. g. Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.
CCSS.L.3.1 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. a. Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences. b. Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns. c. Use abstract nouns (e.g., childhood). d. Form and use regular and irregular verbs. e. Form and use the simple (e.g., I walked; I walk; I will walk) verb tenses. f. Ensure subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.* g. Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified. h. Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. i. Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Core concepts

narrative writing
Black History Month
story structure
parts of speech

Topics

black history creative writing writing early writing elementary writing martin luther king jr rosa parks ruby bridges mae jemison MLK

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Black History Month Creative Writing Prompts with Story Cards

What's inside this resource