The Shoe Lesson: A Simple, Powerful Creative Writing Activity

What if one ordinary object could unlock a thousand extraordinary stories?

The Shoe Lesson is one of my absolute favourite creative writing activities. It’s simple, unexpected, and powerful - and it never fails to hook students, no matter how many times I use it.

I first came across the idea during my English tutorials in my teacher training year. We had regular subject-specific tutorials to get to grips with exam standards, best practices, and share ideas. One day, my lecturer mentioned that giving students a physical object, like a shoe, could be a powerful spark for creative writing.

I decided to use it for my first observed lesson. I remember my feedback word for word:

"I wish you could have seen all their faces as you passed them out. It was gold. You instantly had them hooked."

I’ve used it at least once a year ever since. There’s just something about shoes, they tell you so much about a person before a single word is even written.

Why the Shoe Lesson Works

It’s so unexpected. Students love that.

I usually introduce it when I’m about to start a creative writing unit with a focus on character development.
I get them into pairs or small groups, give them a big piece of paper, and tell them:

"I'm about to give you something that belongs to your character. Use the paper to mind map, make notes, sketch - whatever you need to get them onto the page. But I want detail. I want you to think about more than just their physical appearance or relationships. How do they move? What do they sound like? What's their first thought when they wake up in the morning? I want the small details that makes them a person"

The Shoe Lesson doesn't just prompt surface-level characters. It invites depth. It demands that students really see their character. How they move, how they think, how they fit into the world around them.

It’s a reminder that great stories aren’t always about grand adventures - sometimes the most powerful characters are the everyday ones. Think about fictional figures like Nick Carraway, Arthur Dent, or Bilbo Baggins, who are just ordinary people (or hobbits) drawn into extraordinary circumstances.

Reactions Are Half the Magic

This lesson is pure joy. Not just for the students, but for the teachers too.

Every time I plan the Shoe Lesson, I send out an email asking colleagues if they’ll lend me a single shoe (yes, just one!) with the promise it’ll be returned exactly as they gave it. I always say: the older, the more worn, the better. If someone’s never been asked before, they’re understandably confused because let’s be honest, it’s a weird request.

Once the lesson starts, the magic happens.

Students don’t just leave the shoe sitting on the desk. They pick it up, examine the sole, look inside for hidden details, even sneak a sniff when they think I'm not looking. Some of them even try it on!

It becomes an instinctive, almost subconscious exploration of story: walking a mile in someone else's shoes - quite literally.

They create characters that feel real, not superheroes or over-the-top figures, but relatable, layered "everyman" characters with flaws, dreams, and histories of their own.

How I Run the Lesson

◆ Students mind-map and sketch character ideas based on the shoe.
◆ They brainstorm: appearance, movement, voice, likes, dislikes, dreams.
◆ They write a short piece: "A Day in the Life" - starting from the moment their character wakes up to their final thought as they fall asleep.

Because they've done the deep thinking first, their characters are richer, fuller, and more believable when they start to write.

At the end, students are desperate to know who the shoe really belonged to, and sometimes, they guess correctly (but more often, they are way off, which is half the fun).

What’s lovely is that the staff who lend me their shoes always come and ask, “What did the students imagine about mine?"

There’s a mini but real ripple effect - colleagues feel part of the creativity too, and it turns the whole school into a little storytelling community for a day or two.

Real Shoes or Ready-Made Resources?

If you can, give it a go with real shoes, it’s absolutely worth it. The students' reactions, the physical exploration, the excitement of guessing which shoe belonged to which teacher - it's one of those classroom moments you don’t forget.

That said, if you don’t have time to source 10–15 shoes, or you're working remotely, I created a downloadable resource that adapts the idea. Instead of physical shoes, it features 50 picture prompts of different objects that students can use to imagine and develop characters.

While it’s not quite the same as holding a real shoe, it still sparks brilliant creativity, and it works perfectly for distance learning, homework tasks, writing centres, or quick in-class activities.

You can find the resource here on TpT.

How the Shoe Lesson Sparked a New Part of My Business

When I first started dreaming about expanding Ink and Insights beyond TpT, I kept coming back to the feeling I had running this lesson: That moment when you hand students something ordinary, such as a battered old shoe, and watch their imaginations light up.

That spark, that shift from "I can't think of anything" to "I have a whole story" - that's what I wanted to build even more space for.

Ink and Insights has always been about supporting creativity in the classroom, but this lesson helped me realise that I wanted to create experiences and opportunities for students, teachers, and writers to step straight into a story and make it their own.

That’s where the idea for the Creative Writing Boxes began.

You can read more about how it inspired me here, starting with my very first box, The Victoriana Collection and The Kindling Collection.