[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 15 | July 27, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Collaborative writing can ease the initial difficulties elementary writers have when asked to bring their own ideas onto paper. Here are some of the collaborative writing tasks I rely on in my classroom:
In person, place, type of story, the students use cards in three different colours and describe:
- the main character of the story by name, age, job etc.
- the place where the story unfolds. It can be anywhere and students are encouraged to be specific, e.g. a restaurant in a run-down neighbourhood of Chicago.
- a type of story: love, crime, fantasy, disaster, science fiction, etc.
Collect the cards in three piles according to their colour. Students come up and take one card from each pile and start writing using the prescriptive elements on their cards. A more advanced version could include two characters who must meet in the story.