Students break into groups of 5 or 6.
Each student starts with a blank sheet of paper, and is to answer and elaborate on ONE of the following prompts:
1. In my community, we ________. And it looks like _______.
2. Things that make a person likable are; _________, because _______.
3. I saw __________ (issue) on the new recently, and these are my concerns/questions.
4. If I was teaching this class, a typical day would look like _______.
5. Challenges facing youth today are _________.
Each student gets 10 minutes to write a paragraph (roughly) on the prompt of their choice. After 5 minutes, the students (within their group) pass their paper to the person on their right. Then 6 minutes are given to that person to continue where the other person left off. Each student is to add/make a twist to the original story. Each time the student passes the paper to their peer, an additional minute is added to the overall time (as to allow each person enough time to read what has already been written).
After everyone (in the group) has had a chance to write on everyone's paper, the original author will have a few minutes to read over the "finished product".
The class would post these stories in a book, that would be open and available for all, in case students wanted to see the final copies of their peers.
Ideally, in a group of 5 kids, this activity would take about 35 minutes. The first couple of minutes (of a 60 minute class) would be used to split into groups and discuss the objective of the assignment. Next would be 35-40 minutes of writing. The remaining 10-15 minutes would be time for the students to share their experiences of writing/adding to their peers ideas. Discussion would be open to positive experiences, as well as challenges or negative experiences.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
i really like this assignment........
ReplyDeleteit's actually pretty similar to one i did, but yours it better because it's more detailed and there is more of a wrap-up activity.
i like writing activities like this, because it lets students express their individuality, it gives them interesting prompts, and it lets them build on each other's work. i think the effect is that it helps create a sense of community in the classroom. and it can turn some students on to writing a little more, simply because there is no right or wrong answers.