Generally stories are not interesting for everybody.They usually lack something(a missing information or a slight detail);so we wish we were the tellers so as to rectify it in the way it satisfies our expectations.Your students will be able to participate in the rebuilding of a story in the way it pleases them.
Choose a short story to tell the students.Read it twice in the same way.Then ask the students some comprehension questions(according to their grade levels)including Wh- questions,True or False,Multiple choice or others,and ask them about their opinions.When you feel the story has been well assimilated and understood, you read it for the third time (The students mustn't take notes)and directly ask them to write it in their own styles.All changes are allowed provided that they don't harm the sequence and unity of the original story.
OBJECTIVES :With this exercise the teacher tends to help students widen their imaginative scopes and be inventive and innovative.Moreover,students will learn to have a critical mind.Later they may write their own stories at home and bring them to the classroom to be dealt with in the same way.Consequently,in groups,students will discuss and negociate the form,the content and even the techniques used in writing a (somehow) convincing "complete"story full of suspense,excitements and sometimes mystery.Try this it will be pure fun.My students sometimes come out with extraordinary results.
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