This is an updated version of the activity Carly described here in a comment field a few weeks ago in response to her having a lot of extra individually created characters who didn’t get into stories during the course of the year. This assures that they at least got some attention since the artists put so much work into creating these kinds of images.
The value of this activity lies precisely in eating up huge chunks of time at a time of year when that is a desired goal, while not giving up much in terms of quality comprehensible input.
We thank Carly for this one:
1. Pair up 16 images and write something about each pair of images on 8 sheets of chart paper.
For example, if there is an image of a superhero carrot and a basketball-playing strawberry it might look like this “My name is Super Carrot. I live in New York City and I work as a superhero. I can fly faster than a plane but I’m scared of swimming.” Another example: “My name is Sweetie. I play professional basketball and I am captain of the team.”
Add one sentence that both characters might say at the bottom of the text.
This results in 8 of these:
2. Place the 8 chart papers with their corresponding images around the room at stations labeled A through H.
3. Give each student a sheet of blank copy paper which they fold into 8 boxes.
4. Divide the class into 8 groups and send each group to a station.
5. Students first read the write-up with their group.
6. Then, in the corresponding box on their sheet, students complete at least one task of their choice, writing about what they read at each station: (a) they could summarize in English, (b) add on new information inspired by the text, (c) rewrite affirmative statements from the text in the negative, or (d) ask a follow-up question.
7. After about 7 minutes at the station the groups advance to the next station.