short writing ideas
Running Dictations
A running dictation is a great activity which gets students off their seats and moving. It is competitive, fast and practices speaking, listening, reading and writing (and memory!).
1. You can use any text you like. Separate the text and write it on strips of paper. Each individual part should not be too long (students need to remember it) and there shouldn't be too many pieces of paper (they will get tired).
2. Put the pieces of paper around your classroom before the students arrive.
3. Divide the students into pairs. Tell them that one person will be a runner and the other a writer.
4. The runner must run, find a piece of paper, read the text, memorise it and tell the writer. The writer must write the sentence down.
You can ask the students to order the sentences if they are part of a longer text. You could also have two halves of a sentence (proverbs or famous quotes work well) on different pìeces of paper and get students to correctly match the sentences once they have written them all down. The options are endless. Just remember to set the rules clearly - runners will try to cheat by shouting.
The winners are the pair that finish first correctly!
· Writing Haikus
You are probably familiar with haikus and perhaps you have even written some. This is a short Japanese poetry form which:
- captures a moment
- creates a picture in the reader's mind.
A haiku consists of 3 lines:
· 5 syllables in the first line,
· 7 syllables in the second line, and
· 5 syllables in the third line.
This is a haiku by Basho Matsuo, the first great poet of haiku in the 1600s:
More examples and information here:
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-haiku-poems.html
Haikus (and other short poetry forms) can be a fun and collaborative activity, especially for younger students. They can collaborate by bringing pictures of nature etc. Typically haikus focus on nature and there is a surprise word - in our example above "splash". You can of course be flexible with the rules about the number of syllables and the subject - remember that the idea is to have fun, be creative and get writing!
- Collaborative Story Writing
Creative writing is a tricky activity and success will depend not only on the group and students, but also on how well you set up (prepare) them for the task.
Some factors to consider:
- How much collaboration you want between students: you may have them brainstorming and mind-mapping together for the first stages but then working individually or in pairs for the final part. Or it may be a totally collaborative project that goes on for a longer time, with different students writing different parts of the text. Whichever way you choose, make sure that they are all participating - so keep the groups relatively small.
- Do you want to control the language they use (in the example, my students had to use particular words which I provided on a word cloud). You may want them to practise particular grammar, expressions, dialogue etc...or maybe you just want to give an opportunity for free expression.
- Decide together on the genre of the story (horror, love, sci-fi...pre-face with a discussion on their favourite type of reading)
- Ensuring that the activity makes sense to them, i.e. that the writing has a purpose and audience, i.e. they have an opportunity to read each other's work at the end or display it for other students to see, publish it in a class blog etc.
- The PPP rule: People (who), Place (where), Plot (what). Work with students helping them to define these elements at the initial stages of the process.
