Writing writing writing

I hope I haven't already blogged about this, but I tried something recently and it worked pretty well. I asked a story in two classes, obviously getting two very different stories using the key vocab. I then had the students draw pictures of each scene, so that we large pictures of the action. We used these for retells and to give the artists an outlet for a day. The next day, I took the pictures from the other class and posted them in the room. I asked the students to look at the pictures and draw the story that they thought the other class wrote. I had them write a story by themselves and then pair with another student to combine their ideas into a better story. Then that pair paired with another pair (for a group of 4) and combined all the stories into the best story. I had them share their stories and then the students voted on which story they thought was the best. It got my students writing, thinking and producing the language. And, it was a pretty easy day for me and my voice!