It’s pretty easy to come up with many different ways to review portions of a story, but I’ve always had trouble thinking of unique activities that allow students to re-generate an entire text. Cynthia Hitz’s “Back At’cha” works well for this, as does creating a Class Storybook. These activities are great, because they allow the teacher to lead the class through a complete re-tell of the story without simply asking the class, “What happens next?” “And then?” “And then?”. Another activity that works pretty well is what I’ll call “Story Strips”. Use this activity after you have finished asking a class story or reading a story-based text (ex: a novel, short story, or chapter of a novel). It is a good way to generate a complete version of the text in writing and remind students of everything that happened.
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Cut 8.5”x11” pieces of computer paper (new or scrap) into four strips, the long way (landscape orientation). Cut up enough strips for each student in your class to have two.
- Distribute one strip to each student.
- Instruct students to write one line from the story on their strip of paper.
- Collect the strips from students one-by-one. Each time that you take a strip from a student, read it aloud (correcting it as you say it so that students do not hear any errors).
- Circle the sentence, and then tape it to the board. If possible, personalize it as well. If you are unfamiliar with the circling or personalization strategy, please visit this link.
- After you tape each one to the board, collect another strip from another student. Read it aloud to the class, then ask them if it is a new event or a repeat. If it is a repeat, tape it on top of the strip that it repeats that was already taped to the board. If it is a new event, tape it to the board in a way that creates a timeline: either above or below or to the left or right of previously added events. Ask students questions to help you determine where it should go: this will give them repetitions of sequencing vocabulary as well as the structures contained within the story. **While you are doing this, have a student type the story–projected so that the class can see it, if possible–or write it down in a notebook if typing is not an option.
- Repeat #4-6 until all strips have been added to the board.
- Once all strips have been collected, distribute a second strip to each student. ‘
- Instruct students to write a “missing” event or piece of information from the story on their second strip (if there are not many missing, students could work in pairs to do this).
- Repeat steps #4-6 until you have a complete version of the story taped in chronological order on the board, then read it together!
You now have a complete text. This will allow you to do some of my favorite activities like a Blind Re-tell or Write, Draw, Pass, and it prevents you from finding yourself in the unfortunate position of planning activities for the next day and forgetting what happened in the class’s story! Voila!
What are some activities that you’ve used to generate complete, written re-tells?
Is there a way for me to document each post I really love for future use? I just love this idea!!!
Pinterest is my favorite way to do that! Just create boards for different categories (activities, songs, story scripts, etc.) and then pin each post that you want to remember onto the appropriate board with a brief board that will remind you of what the post is about. Then, you can scan your boards and see at a glance all of the ideas that you have to work with.
Thank you!!
🙂
Cute idea! We’ll be starting a movie tomorrow and this definitely seems like something I can work in – thanks for sharing (and for doing so with such good timing 😉 )
Gracias Martina por esta idea fabulosa. La usé ayer con mis estudiantes de séptimo con la historia que estamos leyendo. Les encantó la actividad, colaboraron mucho para poner la historia en orden y luego complementarla con las partes que les faltaron de la primera ronda.
aquí te dejo una foto de la actividad:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6G8sr7yKkqNUmwzczRhbWRRMnc/edit?usp=sharing
Fenomenal! Gracias, Elena. La puedo subir a este post?
Por supuesto Martina. Gracias 🙂
How about dividing the chapter/story into x number of groups. Give each group one or two paragraphs they are responsible for reading and then creating a mute skit to represent that part. After allowing them 5 to 10 minutes each group presents their mute skit while one student is typing the story dictated by those students in the audience. Then students get to compare the original text with the class version. Can work with new chapters in a story you have been working with or to review. Hope you like my idea.
Love it Diego, thanks for sharing!
Love this idea. Great way to develop comprehension of the story and the teach the story elements.