Adding to the Story: OHPs in the Classroom

Level: Any Level

Aim: To give students further practice in expanding paragraphs.

Materials Needed: OHP transparencies/pens/ OHP machine

Stage One: Photocopy a background scene on to a transparency. Next, put it up on the wall next to the white board. Ask students to write down ideas about the place.
Ask the students to predict what is going to happen today in the town, mountainside,etc....

(Before the class, photocopy onto an OHP different people or animals that can be cut out and dropped into the scenary or the background)

Next, say "perhaps" to their suggestions and then begin to add a transparency character to the scene. Elicit from the students information and questions about the person. Keep adding characters and letting students discuss possibilities and changes for the story.

After that, in groups ask students to write a story about the scene. Ask them to describe the environment and atmosphere in the first paragraph and to start to tell the story thereafter.

When the students complete their stories, pass the papers aroung for other groups to read and peer edit before asking the original group to tell their story about the illustration.

Source: http://iteslj.org