This fall is a strange back to school season. Honestly, it doesn’t even feel like back to school. Even though I haven’t been in school for at least 5 years, I would still feel the buzz and excitement of school around me. Every time I went to the store, there would be shelves upon shelves of school supplies.

And as a writer, I love those shelves. I have too many unused notebooks. I probably should go to a notebooks anonymous meeting.

But this year feels weird. Covid 19 has made everything weird. But at this point, most schools have opened up. My sister started grad school. The kids in my neighborhood have lined up for the school bus every morning.

So, with all that, I thought it would be interesting to have back to school prompts…but timely back to school prompts.

So let’s get to it.

Scenarios

• Distance learning from your dorm but everyone is noisy af.
• Someone realizing their kid’s new teacher is someone they hooked up with but over video chat.
• Internet going out in the middle of a class.
• Two best friends not in the same virtual/in person cycle.
• Better yet, two teens in love not in the same virtual/in person cycle.

Word Collections

These are 3 to 5 word groupings to either inspire or to create a challenge of trying to fit all 3 to 5 words into your story.

• Excited, Internet, Friends
• Work-from-home, Challenging, Bubbles
• Focus, Laundry, Homework, Friends
• Lonely, Glitch, Empty
• Trick, Innovative, Impersonation
• Virtual, Play-Date, Open
• Snacks, Interruption, Family
• Teacher, New, Confused, Complicated

It’ll be interesting to look back on this blog in a few years and see these prompts since they’re so influenced by Covid-19.

As always, let me know which prompts you use in the comments below…or interesting things you or someone you know has had with school and covid. I hope you stay safe. I thank all teachers who are currently putting their life on the line just to do their job.

And I’ll see you next week. I might have a special guest so be on the look out for that!