Brainstorming Topics for Papers

If you were assigned a book review go HERE also.

These are some basic brainstorming assignments I use, and they can be used for most classes. I usually assign a list of twenty-five items from each of these. For all of these each item should be worthy of a substantial word count. Or better yet, each item should have a story behind it.


For any class you should make a list of what you like or at least what you hate the least and go from there.

Fill in the blank.
The last time I...
The first time I...

These would be personal papers, probably reflective, but it's possible they could wind up being other types of papers as well.

Things I want to know more about.
Things I already know how to do.

The first most likely would be a research or informative paper, while the latter would be an informative paper or a process paper, but as with all these prompts the final paper may be a different type of essay.

List twenty five books you've read.
List twenty-five movies you've read.

These would be critical analysis or book reviews or even persuasive papers as long as they were extremely short on summary.

For a literature or poetry course try the following, though for my courses you should focus on stories or poetry assigned in class.

What stories or poems do you like?
What themes did you like?
What literary concepts do you like?
What characters do you like?

After you've answered those, ask yourself why, and that will lead you to what you might consider writing about.