Telling Tales

Arrange three separate bags at the front of the class, and put slips of paper in each of them. The first bag should hold the name of a person, the second the name of a place, and the third should contain an action. For example, ‘The Queen’, ‘Beach’, ‘Skipping’. Ask the students to select one slip of paper from each bag, and then to write a short story that includes all three elements. This can be as fictitious as they wish, so long as it makes grammatical sense. One by one ask the children to read out their short paragraph to the class, who should then try to spot any grammatical mistakes. The more random the words on the cards are the better, as humour and comedy are perhaps the most prolific teaching tools in existence.

By Joanne Elliott