Guided writing: Writing a story on the OHP

Preparation

Cut up an OHT into three strips for each group of 3-4 students.

Procedure

Step 1

• Tell your students they are going to write a story entitled ‘A Wonderful Day’ and that they are going to be the narrator in the story.

• Draw 4 big circles on the board. In the first circle write ‘Who am I?’ and ask your students to decide on the main character of the story (You could use a picture to stimulate imagination):
  • How old am I?
  • What do I do?
  • What do I look like?
  • What am I like?
  • Who are my friends?
  • What family have I got?
  • What kind of relationship do I have with them?
  • What do I like doing?
  • Etc

• Write up their ideas.

Step 2

• In the second circle write ‘Morning’ and ask the students to decide what I did to make it such a wonderful day and write up their ideas.
• Repeat the procedure for the third and fourth circles substituting ‘Morning’ for ‘Afternoon’ and ‘Evening’.

Step 3

• Put the students into groups and tell them each group is going to write one part of the story: morning, afternoon or evening. Hand out a strip of OHT to each group as well as OHP pens. If you have a large class you could divide them in two and have them write two stories.

Step 4

• Give the students about twenty minutes to discuss together and write their part of the story then collect the strips back and arrange them together on the OHP.
• I find it helps if you read the text aloud and the students follow. Go over the text with the students and tell them what you think they did well.
• If you want you can also analyse the texts for errors.

Variations

You can vary this theme to incorporate other ideas like ‘An Awful Day’ or ‘An Unexpected Day’ etc.