Mini-Stories

Students use example sentences from a dictionary to write a coherent mini-story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Procedure

1. Write a set of example sentences from a dictionary on the board. Alternatively, ask students to look up example sentences for words they have recently learnt.
2. Students work in pairs or groups of three to write a mini-story (with a beginning, middle, and end) that makes sense, incorporating the example sentences.
3. An additional challenge: use as many of the example sentences as possible.
4. Groups swap stories and read out another group's story.

Tips

• Example sentences to try: "Do you think Tim's avoiding me?" / "He concocted a story about working late" / "Bad vibes were radiating from him" / "Incredibly, no one was hurt in the accident" / "The highs and lows of life tend to average out in the end"
• An imaginative way to exploit dictionary examples, which often get overlooked
• Follow-up: students select their own set of example sentences to challenge other groups
• Also works with "random" sentences from grammar reference books