Alisa recently sharesd some pencil and paper bail outs for when we need to get the kids writing, if for no other reason than to give ourselves a break:
1. Turn a narrative into a Reader’s Theatre. So you ask them what the character would say while the narrative is onscreen, and they offer dialogue, which you write in real time, and you ‘save as’. Then you use the dialogue text as Dictee – or ask them to write it as Dictee before you write it onscreen, then you write it and they check for accuracy, per Ben’s Dictee protocol.
2. With a write up to any story true/false, matching, short answer and/or multiple choice Qs. This I know is time consuming, so…
3. Use Carol Gaab’s Cuéntame mini-stories (embedded readings) and activities from the student book. They are universal and use all high-frequency verb chunks.
4. Read a novel and work painstakingly through the teachers’ guide. Many of the easy novels have these guides – comprehension questions, fill in the blank, short answer, etc.
5. Textivate If kids have computers they can do as homework; if not you can do in class, though it wouldn’t be pencil/paper…but it is a very school-looking language dense “activity”.
6. Slicing up class stories (a sentence or 2 per page) to have students illustrate pages. Don’t forget to number the pages and have kids write their name/section on the back. Admins dig a class-produced original book – everyone does! Pull one of those puppies out to show extended language, creativity, teamwork, language/vocabulary and grammar lists – B-I-N-G-O.