I gave my students a sheet of paper with the phrase "Eating the Honey of Words" written at the top, taken from Bly's collection of poems. The students were then to "collect" words throughout the semester--both ones they loved and hated, and we discussed them occasionally, and traded too, creating various prompts with the sheets. I also had a sheet of butcher paper stapled to the wall in the front of the room and invited them to write some of those words on the paper, which they loved to do. This, of course, was while I taught creative writing in high school, though I did do the paper in a pocket part with my college students in Intro to Creative Writing.

1/ Three Objects

This can work as a good first-day exercise to help students get to know one another.

Have students pair up and pull three objects from their backpack / purse / pockets, etc. You can lead them by saying, "Find three objects that tell something about you," or "Find three objects that are important to you," and pass them to your partner.

Students can then:
- Write about what is revealed by those three objects. What assumptions can be made with those three objects? You can have students introduce each other with those three objects and the guesses as to what is a significant part of the partner's life / personality. (This can be a kind of character building exercise as well.)
- OR, students could create a story which involves those three objects in some way.