Design Your Own…

Method:

1. T or SS think up something to design, which could be linked to a topic. For example, if the topic is Charity, SS could design their own charity (see below); if the topic is Football, SS could design their own football club, and so on.

2. The session follows a number of stages (see example below), with whole class feedback after each one. While SS work and discuss, T monitors, checks, and corrects.

3. Here is a suggestion for an activity with 5 stages:

Here is an example:

Tips:

  • Note that at each stage SS should write a different kind of text. You do not need to follow the text types listed above, but do require a variety of text types. During the group feedback session, T should try to tie together the stages so that each text is part of the larger story.
  • SS write their texts as a group or pair, with one person writing and the others pitching ideas. The person writing could change at each stage.
  • Each pair or group will write a different set of texts about the same venture. It will be interesting to compare how each one develops during the group feedback stages. Or, each group could design a completely different thing.
  • A suggestion: each text must be no more than 4 sentences long, to keep the activity moving along fairly quickly and to make it more manageable, although T could specify more or fewer sentences, depending on the time they have.
  • Indeed, this is a flexible activity. The number of stages and the length of each one depends on how much time T wants to fill and how quickly SS complete each text – as well as how long T specifies the text to be. T needs to monitor the time closely so that SS get through the requisite number of stages. A quick rule of thumb might be 10 minutes for each stage, including group feedback afterwards, which would make the above activity with 5 stages last for around 50 minutes.
  • Project work like this is a good way for SS to get to know one another better, and is therefore an ideal activity to do early on in a course.