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This activity is fun and creative and has always worked well for teachers both with adults and
younger students.
Stimulating and motivating factors were highlighted as the main factors in the following
activity too. It deals with writing activity that our class did for a special assembly we had. We were
to write a very simple story that had little detail (it was to be performed by a mime). When we say
about choosing a topic, traditionally students are given a topic to write on by the teacher. However,
with certain classes, students may prefer to nominate the topic themselves. This can lead to greater
interest in the task on the part of the student, as well as, perhaps, greater knowledge of the topic
under study. The mind map strategy can be used to explore almost any topic.
Activity #3: Short story writing
The aim:
to write a short story
Objectives: to teach to formulate the topics for a short story, to teach to complete a graphic
organizer, to teach to write a paragraph.
Visual aids and materials: interactive white board, pictures of winter.
Procedure
I Pre-writing stage:
1. Warm-up: Teacher begins the lesson with asking the question: ‗What is the winter beautiful
with? Do you like snowy weather? How do you enjoy the snowy weather‘ (A mass of replies comes
from the students)
2. Presentation of the new material. Teacher displays on the interactive board the model of
writing a short story, so the students listen to him very carefully. Teacher presents graphic model of
how the short story should be written (Each story must deal with the setting, characters, problem
and solution).
3. Mind map: Students were preparing a mind map by discussing the theme ‗Winter‘ and they
contributed ideas while the teacher wrote on the board (teacher can suggest or assist students in
formulating the themes for the topics). The students can nominate several topics like Winter
vacation; Snowball fight; Snowman creation; Winter sports; Sledge racing; Winter holidays; Crash
on the road (sleet); Non-stopping ice storm.
The list of topics is prepared in this way. For this activity students are divided into four groups
consisting 3 children each. So the goal is to produce 4 short stories. The students are given a chance
to choose topics for their stories within this linear form (they had chosen ―Snowball fight‖, ―Sledge
racing‖, ―Crash on the road (sleet)‖ and ―Non-stopping ice storm‖).
3. Graphic organizer: For writing a short story that tells their reader about winter situations
students must describe in some detail - the more interesting the better - what students did, where,
and how it went. To begin their masterpiece the presented graphic organizer which gives the
directions in writing a paragraph will be helpful. The steps reveal: a) where the story takes place, b)
who was there, and c) what was the funny event that happened (the Scheme 1).
Scheme - 1. Graphic Organizer for writing a short story.
• Solution
• Problem
• Setting
• Characters