High stakes assessments are coming to an end. This time period provides the perfect opportunity to introduce a few interactive writing activities in the classroom that can serve as relief from test preparation or testing season.
The interactive writing activities listed here will put the students at the center of the classroom, interacting with and learning from one another.
A theme at the 2014 National Council of Teachers of English Annual Conference examined the notion of breaking down walls and allowing learning to take place beyond the classroom — in museums, at local venues, and in the community at large. Field trips expand learning. Visit a four-year or community college, virtually tour a museum, or go on an historical scavenger hunt. Allow students to generate organic questions and search for answers. Or assign students a historical artwork using Google Art Project. Have students compose three questions about the artwork and then answer them using their research.
Want to know what the students really liked about your class? Ask them. Have students compose three questions about the school year. You can design three questions to use as a model. Students can interview each other and record the answers, and responses can then be tabulated and shared.
Students can rewrite endings to traditional stories. Have students publish their writing (on a blog, for example). Use social media venues and have students record a six-second video and post it to Snapchat, Twitter, or Facebook. The topics should be related to the class.
Get students energized and engaged in learning with a Grammar & Writing Stations exercise. Simply set up stations around - the classroom where groups of 5–7 students rotate for 10 minutes at a time. Order the stations so they alternate between fun grammar games and interactive writing activities. Some grammar and writing activities you can use are as follows:
Learning is about more than test preparation. Providing opportunities to have fun and be creative in —and out of — the classroom is a great way to keep students engaged in learning all year long. Use the interactive writing activities above to rejuvenate students after a season of strenuous testing.