Dear English Teacher, do you sometimes feel that your students are not motivated enough to write texts or that they don’t find writing assignments interesting! It’s time to change all that and find a new approach on writing. How?
Explain students that writing is one of the most useful tools that will help them become better communicators:
- In the process, your students’ vocabulary and logical thinking will improve.
- Writing may become their new hobby.
- Your students’ ideas could influence other people’s opinions, lives and why not, change the world!
- In time, their writing will become a scale to measure the gradual development of their critical thinking and skills in expressing themselves.
First of all, let’s concentrate on creativity and provide students with a few opportunities to produce creative texts. Here are three fun exercises you can practice with your students:
Activity 1: Tell the Story of this Object
Bring a few objects to class for example a rock, a pen, a leaf or even a used bottle. Tell them to imagine that they are the object and that they have to tell its story.
Activity 2: Change the Pronouns
Bring a sample story to class written in the first person and ask them to switch it to either a second person narration or a third person narration. Tell them to change the first story to adapt it to their new speaker however they feel it should go.
Activity 3: Write Lyrics to Music
Start with playing a piece of music with no lyrics. Tell them that they have to be the writers of with those lyrics. It can be a free write or guided, they can start with listening to the piece naming an object or a feeling they are reminded of and then expand that into sentences then finally into lyrics.
Have fun writing and don’t forget to encourage your students to put their knowledge into practice and participate in our annual contest Shakespeare School Essay Competition! This is not only a great opportunity to show the world how creative your students are but also a chance to win a two-week summer camp to England! For more details about the competition check our website where you will find all the information you need!
