I’m sure I’m not the only teacher who has found that many students dislike writing. In this post, I will share three fun activities I use across multiple contexts to add some spice to writing practice.
Who Wrote It
Give students a sentence starter relating to their own interests or plans, such as “Ce week-end, je veux…” or “Cet été, je vais…,” or simply “Je suis…” Instruct students to write something that their classmates will associate with them. Then gather all the responses and read them to the class (obviously you should make them aware that you are going to read them aloud before they write them), having students guess who wrote it. I usually start by announcing “C’est une fille” or “C’est un garçon” to help them narrow it down. The students absolutely love this activity!
Socrative Sentences
Using the “Quick Question” feature on the Socrative app, I give students a prompt. They must write a unique and interesting sentence with the prompt. They can ask me or a neighbor for help before they submit it. I then go through and remove responses that contain lots of errors, don’t follow directions, are duplicates of previous responses, or have English in them (I warn them ahead of time not to take it personally, and the names are hidden). The students vote on their favorite of the remaining sentences.
Pictionary
Give students three photo prompts (one for the subject, one for the verb, and one extra for the rest of the sentence – or one for like or dislike, one for the verb, and one for the condition), and see how long a sentence they can write.
