Resource 2: Activities to develop writing

1. Draw a picture of a character from a story. It could be from your textbook, or from a story everyone knows well. Write five or six sentences in English about it.
2. Rewrite the jumbled sentences provided, to make a meaningful paragraph.
3. Write a paragraph summarising a recent lesson in any topic and illustrate it.
4. Make a bookmark based on a story or a poem. Draw a character or write a brief summary on one side of the bookmark. On the other, write the title of the story and the name of the author.
5. Write a letter to the author of a book. (If the author is living, you can try to find the address from your state textbook society and post them some of the students’ letters.)
6. (For older students) Make a big book based on a story for students in lower classes.
7. Set an English quiz with at least ten questions based on a recent lesson on any topic. This helps to reinforce learning as well as to practise writing. After they have tried the quiz, ask the students to exchange papers and check each other’s work.
8. Tell the students a story but do not tell them the ending. Ask them to guess what happened at the end and write it down. Remember that there are no right or wrong endings to a story.
9. Ask the students to bring one small object to the class, such as a pencil, box, leaf, etc. Divide the class into groups of five or six. All the things they brought are placed in the centre of the group. With a limit of ten minutes, each group discusses a possible story based on the objects they have brought. They then write out the story (which should be a minimum of five to six lines long). One student from each group narrates the story to the class. The best story is the one that includes all the objects the group had brought in.
10. Divide the class into groups of five. Each group has one piece of paper to write on, and at least one pencil. Without prior discussion, the group should come up with a story, with each student in the group contributing one sentence at a time. Select one student as the ‘starter’ in each group. The starter writes one sentence on the piece of paper, which now goes to the next student in the group. The second student contributes a sentence that combines with the one already there. The paper keeps going around until the story is complete. Anyone can decide at any point that the story cannot progress any more. If the others agree, the group selects a different starter to write a fresh sentence for a new story – or the next chapter of the first story!