One of the things students find difficult is writing stories at advanced levels. I think this is, in part due to the fact that they very little practice of doing this in their own language and so they are doubly stumped when it comes to doing it in English. However, once they get over their initial difficulties Greek students often turn out to abe accomplished story tellers. Interestingly, according to exam statistics from UCLES Greeks score much higher on these kinds of written exercises than, say essay writing and the like.
The basic aim of this exercise is to “ease” advanced students into creative writing by providing them with a frame work they can pin their ideas to. It also has the added bonus of forcing students to be more disciplined in their story telling.
LESSON PLAN
1 – Ask students to find out about the last book their partner read.
2 – Give out a photocopy of the cover of the book (Burn Marks by Sara Paretsky) that you are going to use in the activity. Students have a few minutes to find out as much as they can about the book's story, style etc.
3 – Give the handout (this should be about three or four paragraphs taken from one or two consecutive pages). Now deal with any grammar or vocabulary queries that students have.
4 Explain to the students that they have to fill in the missing gaps using exactly six sentences. It is probably best if you put students into pairs or small groups for this.
5 Students the exchange their stories and see if the other group's effort makes sense. Does it fit in with the pre-existing story? Are there are continuity errors?
6 For homework ask students to continue the story.
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