Writing comes naturally for most creative writers. While it is easy to pen down your thoughts if you are gifted in that area, teaching creative writing is a totally different cup of tea. To inspire untapped talent into writing, you need good lesson plans for the entire session. This should include the basics of creative writing and an outline of ideas, plots and characters. Begin with a description of creative writing, what it entails, where it can be applied - all the basics- and give examples throughout the lesson. Explain the importance of developing a story line/ plot, characters, their importance and how to create them.

Use examples throughout your lesson. Having the entire class critique and analyze a written piece makes them more confident of their abilities. Make it further interesting by giving each student the opportunity to develop a story from a given situation. It could be the story you are analyzing together. Let each person carry on from an agreed point. Each student can write in whatever style they feel suits them better, be it poetic or prose. Another tactic you can use is asking them to rewrite the given story, maintaining the structure but using different content.

Encourage the students to use all five senses when describing things or places. The graphic details are sure to make their writing even more captivating. Discuss each student's article together and let each student critique each piece. Encourage them to discuss how they would have written the pieces. Balance negative criticism with positive one so that they do not feel like they can never make it in writing creatively. Brainstorming is very important in a creative class. It keeps the creative juices flowing and opens up the students' imagination.

Give assignments covering one topic and discuss each student's writing as a class. As the students see each other's mistakes, they will learn quickly. Each of them will also be encouraged to know that he/she is not the only one with mistakes to take care of. This is also the best time to correct each others' mistakes. Editing, proofreading and grammatical errors should be pointed out and checked. It will raise an awareness and openness about their mistakes.

Your example is the best tool to use to teach creative writing. Bring your oldest pieces along and have your students go through them - the raw copy with all the typos and the edited copy. This will help them understand that like in everything else, one gets better at creative writing with time.