Fun activity #6 is ¡A escribir!, an activity obviously designed to get students spontaneously writing.
At first, when our activity chooser landed on “A escribir,” students were not thrilled. Writing? Don’t we do that all the time? And from my perspective, how do you keep a random, effective writing prompt on hand all the time?
This is where I have to hand all the props to @ZJonesSpanish and his Tírate a escribir writing activities based on comic strips. The chooser lands on A escribir? No problem. I literally have to do -nothing-. I pull up Zambombazo, click on Tiras, and pick the newest one that I think will interest my students and be appropriate for their level. We talk about the tira cómica for about a minute, and then they have 8 minutes to write whatever they can think of about it. It’s been a whole lot more interesting for my students than they thought it would be. We even sent some responses to Zachary and he posted them on the tira on his site.
Another offering from Zambombazo great for lower levels too (and incidentally, writing or speaking) is his ebook, ¿Qué le dirías?.Spontaneous writing gets kids thinking on the spot in the TL, a skill that boosts oral proficiency as well. Go for it!
Photo credit: Jeffrey Pacres
How long are your class periods? I am thinking about doing something like this, and I have 44 minute periods. I’m thinking that asking them to write for 5 minutes would be too short, but I don’t want to have them writing for too long & lose time during the class. Thanks!
My class periods are 50 minutes. 5 minutes is short to write, but it’s enough for this quick activity if you take 5 minutes before to discuss the comic and let them think. However, that makes it come out to 10 minutes still. If your concern is taking 10 minutes of your class period, limit the days you do it – say, just Tuesday and Friday.