Writing Activities Ideas: Aladdin and the 1,000 Arabian Nights

Writing Activities Ideas: Aladdin and the 1,000 Arabian Nights

By Elizabeth Mosaidis

Here are three writing activities that you can try out in the classroom:

Three Wishes: Have your students imagine that they have been given three wishes. What would they
wish for? They should write down their wishes and share them in a small group. You could also have
students draw a picture to represent their wishes and display these wishes around the classroom.

Story starters: Each student will imagine that they are Sheherezade and are starting to tell a new
story. Give the students about 2-3 minutes to write down a story starter. When the time is up,
instruct students to pass their papers to the person sitting next to them. This person will read what
the other person wrote and continue the story, and so on. You can adjust the amount of time that
you give each person to write depending on the level of your students. When everyone finishes, the
original writer will receive their story back. Students will work on reading and writing fluency during
this activity because they will need to read and write quickly, but they should enjoy practicing it in
this fun, lighthearted manner.

Advice Column: Students will imagine that they are one of the characters from Aladdin and the 1,000
Arabian Nights. Their character has a problem and needs some advice from friends or family
members. Hand note cards out to each student to write their problem down and ask for advice.
Collect all of the note cards and redistribute them. Students should read through the problem and
write their advice down on the back of the card. Then they should deliver it to the original writer. To
wrap up, you can have a class discussion about the kinds of problems and types of advice given for
the problems.

What other ideas do you have for using Aladdin and the 1,000 Nights in the writing classroom? Feel
free to share your ideas on the discussion board.

Link to Download an adaptation of Aladdin and the 1,000 Arabian Nights:

https://www.mythpodcast.com/sources/aladdin-one-thousand-and-one-nights/