Sad Consequences

Students create absurd collaborative stories by writing contributions on a folded paper without seeing what came before — a man's name, a woman's name, where they met, what he said, what she said, and the consequence.

Procedure

1. Each student writes a famous man's name followed by "and", then folds the paper to hide what they wrote and passes it to the next student.
2. The next student writes a famous woman's name followed by "met", folds and passes.
3. The next student writes the place where they met (using "at" or "in"), folds and passes.
4. The next student writes "He said" followed by a quote, folds and passes.
5. The next student writes "She said" followed by a quote, folds and passes.
6. The next student writes "And so they" followed by a final consequence.
7. The last student unfolds the paper and reads out the absurd story. Example: "Albert Einstein and Cleopatra met at a disco. He said, 'Marry me.' She said, 'Do you also like Geography?' And so they set the school on fire."

Tips

• Needs hardly any preparation — throw it in when students are flagging
• Variation (past conditional): "If Albert Einstein and Cleopatra had met at a disco, he would have said..." — practises third conditional
• Variation (reported speech): replace "He said" with "He asked if" and "She said" with "She answered that"
• Walk around to help with vocabulary, spelling, or ideas, and act as messenger if some students work faster