One of the challenges associated with the art of teaching writing is time management. I think managing pace is an acutely important skill that can kill or motivate a class of student writers. C’mon, not many people can put their head down for 50 minutes and crank out a nice readable piece of writing. So, why should expect ESL students to do that?
That’s why sponge activities are vital. They ask students to write a chunk of writing, with a definite start and finish, in shorter period of time.
To that end, here’s a nifty sponge activity. It’s called slow writing and I got the idea from here and here. It looks like a writing activity for elementary kids but a clever teacher could find a few ways to adapt it to an ESL classroom.
ESL WRITING ACTIVITY
This is the idea.
Ask students to spend time thinking and then writing a piece that follows this model.
- Sentence one must appeal to the senses.
- Sentence two must use three adjectives.
- Sentence three must start with an adverb.
- Sentence four must contain a connective (words that show a shift in time, a combination a or change).
- Sentence five must use exactly three words.
- Sentence six must be a question.