Writing Skill (3-4 ESO): Add Words to a Story

Adding words to a story

Time: 30-40 minutes
Aims:

To give the students an opportunity to start writing creatively within a safe, controlled frame.
Preparation Choose, or make up, a very short story and write it out as four to eight sentences. .

Procedure:

1 Dictate:
This was a village with [SPACE] walls and [SPACE] roofs.

Ask the students to add a few words in each of the spaces.

2 Dictate:
It had not rained for many, many months. Soon the wells would run dry. The villagers desperately needed [SPACE].

Ask the students to complete the sentence with two or more words.

3 Dictate:
The men of the village went to the [SPACE] mosque to pray for rain. And no rain fell.

Ask the students to add two or more words in the space left.

4 Dictate:
The women of the village went to the [SPACE - add the same words as last time] mosque to pray for the rain clouds to come. One little girl stayed at home. And no rain fell.

Ask the students to draw a quick sketch of the little girl they imagine and to add to the caption: She was...+ three words.

5 Dictate:
The next day the little girl went to the [SPACE] mosque on her own to pray for rain. She took her grandfather's umbrella.

Tell the students to end the story in not more than three words.

6 Group the students in threes. In turn they read their stories to each other.

7 Put up walls, roofs, mosque, etc. on the board.
Get the students to come up and write the words they used to qualify these nouns on the board under each heading.

8 Ask your students to copy into their notebooks the new words they take a liking to.