Finish the picture

How would you finish these pictures? What if they were part of a story?

Finish the picture.pdf

This was one of those activities that surprise you every now and then: not only could the students working in pairs complete them in a short period of time, but the process involved questions and conversations about a wide variety of lexis as their creativity – and especially all the constraints – demanded more specific vocabulary. The students were also allowed to decide on the order of the pictures, which added some flexibility.

If nothing else, the task does help students to create and plan their stories in a meticulous way. Rather than a scaffold, the creative process here becomes a challenge, and basic narrative elements such as the setting, the characters, the plot or the ending need to be carefully thought out to complete the task successfully. A thorough planning stage which then paid off once the students got down to writing.

I also tried this activity with a higher group of students. This time, I gave them different writing tasks and asked them to draw their pictures based on them:

You’re writing the instructions on how to make something work.
You’re writing a recipe.
You’re writing a travel guide.
You’re writing a brochure advertising a hotel or resort.
You’re writing a story.
You’re writing an advertisement.
You’re writing a movie trailer.
You’re writing the description of a place.

Once the texts were written, I posted the pictures around the classroom for the students to examine and later on remember so that they could match them to the texts.

This is a flexible task which allows students to create meaning in so many inventive ways. Interestingly, it didn’t turn out to be as intimidating as I had thought it could be for some students. I think it also provides students with extra motivation to read or listen to their classmates’ texts: the starting point is the same for everyone, yet the results can often be really amusing.

Do you think the quality of writing could also be affected by all this?