I have to admit: with my
growing responsibilities in the classroom, and now with a gaggle of girls under
age 10 to educate at the Lil’Uns school, I’m starting to wonder where I’m going
to get ideas from. And if I do get an idea, how I’m going to put it into
practice. Especially with the group that I’ve had for 3 semesters, with whom I
can’t recycle previously done activities, I’m really stressing.
This is nothing unusual.
Since I’ve begun teaching I’ve experienced this ‘how many more rabbits are in
my hat’ type of anxiety, and it usually manifests itself around this time,
every semester.
I like to have my lessons
planned out a week in advance, that way I can mentally rehearse them at lull
times, say when I’m riding a bus or cleaning house. I do not like stepping in
front of the class without knowing my material cold. I like even less not
feeling inspired, cleaving onto something I’ve found in one of the online ESL
workshops and trying to adapt it to my groups. Which is exactly what I did last
week, when I was drawing a blank come lesson preparation time. I made myself
swallow that bilious lump. We were going to do __________, and that was all
there was to it and that would just have to be good enough.
See? The idea was so awful
I don’t even remember what it was. I’m too lazy to get up and walk across my
office to look at my teacher’s journal, so please just take my word for it that
it was not up to my usual standard of material I like to present. With a
churning stomach I slid into Sunday evening.
Just before going to bed
the idea hit me: Let’s write a story! I would provide the first sentence. Each
student would provide the subsequent line, building onto what the previous
student had written. It would challenge their creativity, test their ability to
understand and use English and…
My friends, it did
everything I wanted it to and more. These kids LOVED it! Come each student’s
turn, he/she ran to the blackboard to write their one sentence. I had no idea
they were so… twisted! But don’t take my word for it, read it for yourself.
SOPHOMORE 1 GROUP (the
ones I’ve had for 3 semesters):
Mary came in, put down
her bag and took off her coat. She went to her bedroom to pick out some
beautiful clothes. Today is her birthday. She dressed herself, and then left
the house. Going to her best friend Lucy’s house, she invited Lucy to go
preparing for her birthday party. What a nice day!
Suddenly the phone rang:
it was her boyfriend. He told her he had an accident. He said he will love her
forever but he was dying. He said he wants to see her one last time before
dying. Sobbing, she set out to the hospital. Unfortunately, another accident!
As a result, they lay in the hospital together. When they woke up they found
they were in a palace. Then they found they had switched bodies. Further, they
had forgotten each other. (At this point,
I wondered where the story would go! Read on to find out.)
Suddenly she woke up and
found it was just a dream. She came back to life but her boyfriend did not. The
doctor said he had become a plant man (clarification: ‘vegetative state’… but I
had to leave ‘plant man’ in. That is just too cute an expression!). She was
very worried about him, at the same time Lucy told Mary she was in love with
him too. Lucy wanted to marry him and take care of him. Mary said she would
bless them. The man woke up suddenly, then he knows everything, but said he
loves a man named Nicholas more.
I only have 3 ‘boys’ in this group: Bryant, Nicholas and Bruce. That
last sentence was written by my more mischievous ‘boy’ student, Bryant. You can
imagine how we roared! Again I wondered: where are they going to go from here?
The next student
approaches the board…
The actress looked at the
play script and couldn’t help laughing: it was really a complex story! The
actress loves the writer; she thinks the man is so fascinating! Finally the
angel appeared (? I’m not really sure what they meant with this sentence). Lucy
married Nicholas. Mary married her boyfriend. The actress married the writer.
All ended well. What a complex story!
And there you have it: 28
sentences of raw imagination, each building upon the other, with only the first
sentence provided by me. I’m definitely going to repeat this exercise in class!
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