Interactive teaching in literacy and language/1. Warm ups/Writing games: Difference between revisions

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These activities work well as lesson introductions but can also feed in to group activities and whole lessons. As with activities outlined in previous sections, talk is key. Pupils should be encouraged to work with partners, share and discuss ideas and have their responses valued; there is no ‘right’ answer.

Keep a 'writing box' in the classroom. Each week put in a new object that the children have to write about. They can take any angle that they wish.

* Make a list of your own favourite words together and read them aloud. Ask the children to compile their own lists and ask other people what their favourite words are and write them down. 

* Something descriptive (e.g. its colour, feel, sound, smell, shape)  

Look at the list of common similes below and ask the children to explain to their partner the story behind the simile. Try inventing new similes and listing them. Collect the best from scanning poems and novels. Make class lists. Discuss why a simile works - is it just a visual similarity? Create a simile alphabet in pairs or small groups within a few minutes.

* As brave as a lion  

* As wise as Solomon

Dead metaphors are clichés - they are the ones that everyone knows and have been used so many times that they are just a part of everyday language, e.g.

* Stone cold  

This sort of language play helps children look anew at language that they may just be using without really thinking about its meaning.

First of all, identify something that you want to create a metaphor around - for instance - the stars. Now think of something that is like the subject or something to do with the subject - they shine, glitter, are like tin-tacks, like diamonds, like jewels, like fiery eyes. Now use an idea to make a metaphor, remembering not to use the word 'like', e.g.

# Move the noun in front of the image - the diamond stars. Dylan Thomas uses this technique in his writing!

Take a simple simile, e.g. My teacher is like an... eagle.  

My teacher is an eagle swooping around the room, hovering over his students, diving down on innocent prey and demolishing them with the terrible grip of his talons.  

Write magical potions to cure illnesses/bad habits.  

The 'word waiter' can serve up only a certain number of words. This can be used for short burst writing, haiku, letters or news items. The randomness of the selection adds a challenging edge that often forces creativity beyond the predictable. The word waiter might serve up a character, place and dilemma for storytelling. Here are some possible starters - but ask the children and add many more ingredients!  

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The writer Stephanie Strickland says that, 'poems are words that take you through three kinds of doors: closed doors, secret doors, and doors you don't know are there'. Make a list of doors that poetry is.... Just be inventive - have some fun. It doesn't have to make sense. Indeed, logic and sense will probably lead to dull writing.  

* Poetry is a door of kittens playing.  

This game is ideal for building descriptions of settings. Think of a place and identify one thing that you can see (e.g. a park bench). Then say, 'in the city of … is a park bench'.  

Instead of 'in the city of …', play the game using the setting in their story, e.g. 'in the haunted house'. Show children how to sketch the scene and annotate, adding in similes. Then practise turning the scenes into mini paragraphs.  

Children - indeed, most humans, - are fascinated by disasters. But what might be a disaster for superman or an ant? Ask children to come up with more ideas.

* His Gran gives him Kryptonite pants for Christmas.

Create an encyclopaedia of invented insects/birds/animals/fruits.  

Dragons are always popular with children. Each child could make their own dragon

* Create an encyclopaedia of different types of dragons

Ask the children to explain the collective nouns in the alphabet below and then create their own alphabet - this might best be done in small teams, dividing the alphabet up between them.  

An abandonment of orphansA ballet dance of swansA crush of rhinocerosesA dose of doctorsAn elephant of enormitiesA fidget of school childrenA glacier of fridgesA hover of hawksAn inquisition of judgesA Jonah of shipwrecksA knuckle of robbersA lottery of diceA misery of bulletsA number of mathematiciansAn outrage of starsA prayer of nunsA quake of cowardsA roundabout of argumentsA swelter of duvetsA tangle of trickstersAn upset of horoscopesA vein of goldfinchA wonder of starsAn x-ray of soothsayersA zeal of enthusiasts  

This game follows on from the invention of collective nouns. There are many possibilities. Split the class in two. One half has to rapidly make a list of places, e.g. room, town, city, village, mountain, river, star, sun, kitchen, alleyway, lawn, garden, castle, etc. The other half has to make a list of nouns and abstract nouns, e.g. memories, love, doom, sparklers, curtains, sunsets, wisdom, jealousy, disasters, grass, hedgerows, teapots, certainty, etc. Then put children into pairs and they match the words listed exactly in the order they write them down, e.g.  

In the city of doomThe streets are awash with dead starfishAnd the windows have wept tears of ice,The shops are empty as silence...

Get a collection of newspapers, magazines, posters and general text. Ask children to cut out 20 - 25 headlines they like the sound of. Put them all together in a pile and then get children to play with piecing them together as a complete poem.  Newspaper headlines are excellent in this task because they tend to employ poetic techniques such as rhyme, onomatopoeia and alliteration. The children can also add their own conjunctions, words or phrases to add to the effect of the poem. Remember, meaning is not essential – the poem does not have to “make sense”. It can, but it doesn’t have to. It’s also just nice to hear what the juxtapositions of strange bundles of words do next to each other.  

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively.  They focus on simple everyday things in an attempt to give the reader a new experience and deeper appreciation of those simple everyday things.