Here is another idea for a writing class, to add to free writes, aWB, bWT, and the other things we discussed in that thread last November about writing. It’s just an idea I had and I haven’t tried it yet but I am going to tomorrow. It’s with a second year class. I wouldn’t do it with a first year class:
1. Put up an image from anywhere. Tomorrow I am using an image from The Big Picture – Boston.com of a tiger shaking water off of himself like doggies do.
2. Discuss it with the class. Write down important new vocabulary on the board and leave it up for the class to use later. (15 minutes max; preferably less)
3. Keep trrying to move the discussion in the direction of some kind of story. If it is a static image of a tiger shaking water off, create a backstory to go with the image, or, if you are working with a more advanced class, do that but also make predictions.
4. Keep the story that you and the class creates really, really simple, like, “Class, the tiger swam in a big pool of yellow water and is now drying off without a towel.” That could be the whole story. Or, with an advanced class, “Class, the tiger swam in a big pool of yellow water and is now drying off without a towel. Then he will lie down and go to sleep next to the pool.”
5. After this auditory creation of a story around the picture, with the new vocabulary up there on the board, ask the kids to write about the picture, using the conjunctions chart, the prepositions chart, the word wall, and anything else they want to use. (15 minutes max; preferably less)
6. Turn off the image or toggle to the document camera. Take a few of the writing samples from the kids and discuss them for the remainder of the class. In this third part of class, point out grammar items without using the grammar terms, just keeping your grammar lesson to “this means that”, and spin a little maybe if you feel like it. (15 minutes max; preferably less).
If you still have time, start another picture.
Notes:
1. In this class, we do a lot more than writing. The first part of class is an auditory input class, the second is the writing part, and the third is mostly about reading and pointing out structure.
2. The main thing is to keep the stories really short. You might could do two pix in one day.
3. You could easily turn this into a culture lesson simply by finding a picture of a guy throwing a hat off the Eiffel Tower or something. Just say the culturally relevant stuff in L1 if it is a lower level group. What the heck. Google Images has endless creative images in there. If you can imagine it, they probably have an image of it for you to use.
4. What I like, as I have said many times here, is that this is a template to follow, not a lesson to deliver. It’s like the three steps of TPRS, which are a template. Templates good, planned activities (that keep the kids trapped in the conscious analytical part of their minds where language learning does NOT occur) bad.