Group Activities for the Writing Classroom



Group Activities for the Writing Classroom

While I integrate base group structure into my planning and find it very effective, I recognize that different teaching styles and teaching environments demand different pedagogical strategies. Therefore, because base group structure does not appeal to all teachers, I have described the activities below so that they may be deployed within any class configuration.

Below you will find a list briefly describing some common types of group activities and seven self-contained examples with selections from Writing as Revision and The University Book which compliment the activity.

Kinds of Group Work to Consider

• Introductory: students get to know their colleagues by sharing information about themselves.

• Cohesive: together students produce something which another group critiques—a summary, poem, paragraph or sentence, for example.

• Team Building: students define themselves and others—I am (not); We are (not); They are (not)

• Acting: students perform something together for the rest of the class; each group member should have a definable role.

• Presenting: students collaborate on a project complex enough to require the work of more than one person.

• Teaching: more interactive than presentations, students guide others through a review (e.g. grammar points, parts of speech) or introduce new material (explaining research). Individuals might teach something to their group mates, or groups might teach the rest of the class.

• Lead-in: students work from what is known to them (individually or as a group) towards what is less-known or unknown. From film-as-entertainment to film-as-cultural-sign for example.

• Generative: students produce language for the immediate purpose of producing language itself—a communal means of getting over writer’s block.

• Review: students discriminate between more and less important bits of information.

Specific Activities

“Body Language”

|Activity for groups of 4-5 people: Groups select a text from their life to perform for the class—hip-hop songs, nursery rhymes, children’s |

|books, fables and fantasies all work very well. Performances might be literal, narrative, impressionistic, or form a tableau. |

|Purposes: “Ice-Breaker” to get students comfortable with each other; make conscious the always-psychologically-present implied audience of |

|utterances. |

|Text from Writing as Revision: “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan—the essay explores different registers of language and serves as a useful |

|introduction to discussions about audience and the language(s) of different groups. |

|Texts from The University Book: “A Contradiction in Terms”; “Things That Help Me Begin to Remember” |

“You Must Be…”

|Activity for groups of 8-10 people: For homework, ask students to come to the next class session with a word-processed anecdote about |

|themselves—ask them, in other words, for a short, typed autobiographical story. Insist that they all use the same font type and size. Also, |

|ask them to fold their completed anecdote into quarters so that the text of their document cannot be seen. When they come to the next class |

|session, have each groups make an anonymous pile with their anecdotes and shuffle them. Then ask one member of each group to select an |

|anecdote and read it aloud to the group. The group should then talk about what kind of persona the anecdote creates—what kind of person wrote |

|it? They should especially consider tone, subject matter, and pronouns. (The author, of course, should remain silent until the group develops |

|a persona based on the anecdote). |

|Purpose: “Ice-Breaker” to get students comfortable with each other; Introduce a discussion about the “absent author”—how texts represent and |

|fail to represent real people. |

|Text from Writing as Revision: “Days of 1981” by Mark Doty—the poem explores the memory of its narrative persona and serves as a basis for |

|examining the (lack of a?) relationship between writers and the narrative voices they invent. |

|Texts from The University Book: “The Blue Room in Florence”; “Notes of an Emigrant Son”; |

“Creating Characters”

|Activity for groups of 4-5 people: This activity requires that students have had contact before; they need to know each other. Also, you |

|should let students know that they will be sharing their results with the group, and that they therefore might want to think especially of |

|positive attributes. Ask students individually to associate each of the other members of their group with an animal, or a car, or a food, or a|

|tool based on that person’s performance in the class: e.g. “Jason is like a horse—he talks so fast”; “Susan is like a truck—she carries |

|conversations.” Once the students have the associations down, then ask them to articulate why they chose those associations. Next, they should|

|share what they have written about the other members. Eventually, the group should collaborate on a list of characteristics that describe each|

|member and they should assign a nick-name that either characterizes that person accurately or ironically (i.e. “speedy” for someone who is |

|methodical and thorough). Depending upon the personalities of the class, you may need to carefully monitor this activity so the nick-naming |

|doesn’t get mean-spirited. After the students have assigned their own names to each other, then talk to them about common group roles. You may|

|find the following list helpful: taskmaster (in a positive or negative sense); decision maker (or dictator); lieutenant; facilitator; |

|contrarian (conflict producer); information gatherer; secretary; diplomat (conflict avoider); lost sheep; dead weight. As a follow-up, you |

|might ask students to confidentially write about their self-perception—what role does the student see herself playing most often in groups? |

|For extensive lists of roles, see |

|or . |

|Purposes: Improve group functioning and participation; Provide functional names for individual members |

|Texts from Writing as Revision: “What I Am”; “Yellow Woman”; “A Sense of Myself”; “Landscape and Narrative”; “Carbon Copy”; “The Man Made of |

|Words” |

|Texts from The University Book: “The Good Drudge Habit”; “Composing the Self”; “Reconstructing Myself in an Academic Text: Making Amends”; “On|

|Being a Cripple”; “Madonna” |

“Experts”

|Activity for groups of 4-5 people: Divide up a text or a series of texts that can easily be read in class and are generally accessible: divide|

|poems into lines or stanzas, and essays and stories into paragraphs for example. Assign each member of the groups a particular part of the |

|text and tell them that they will now become the “expert” on that part of the text. Tell them that they will need to consider the following |

|questions so that they can explain to the other members of their group how their section operates by itself and fits with the rest of the |

|text: What are the most important words used in your section of the text? What purpose does your section serve? What kinds of nouns and verbs |

|are used? How is your section different from the section before and the section after it; what is new and what is repeated? Once students have|

|had a chance to answer these questions, then ask the groups to present their findings to the group. Insist that they talk first about how |

|their section transitions from the one before it; then what it does on its own; and finally how it introduces the section that comes after it.|

|Purposes: Diffuse power structures in groups; Increase participation of “silent” members; Generate discussion about written breaks and |

|transitions |

|Texts from Writing as Revision: “The Western: The Genre that Engenders the Nation”; “Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein”; “The Story of an Hour”; |

|“The Lady’s Dressing Room” and “The Reasons that Induced Dr. S.. to write a Poem called The Lady’s Dressing Room”; “Happy Endings”; “Welcome |

|to the Desert of the Real” |

|Texts from The University Book: “Arizona: The Political Ecology of a Desert State”; “When Property Becomes Peril”; “An Analysis of the |

|Economic Impacts of Indian Gaming in the State of Arizona”; “Ethical Dilemmas in Emergency Medicine” |

“Sources Report…”

|Activity for groups of 4-5 people: Before class, make five copies of the following questions and cut them out so that each slip of paper has |

|only one question on it: What was the main point, idea, or thesis of the text? What was the author’s attitude towards the subject? How would |

|your parents/grandparents/ or younger cousin respond to the text? Why were you asked to read the text? What does this text remind you of? (An |

|experience? Another text?). Distribute the 25 slips of paper out to the students on the class period after they have read the text. (If you |

|are using base groups be sure that you distribute a different question to each of the members of the individual groups.) Next, have students |

|interview their classmates—tell them to start with the question you have provided and tell the students not to interview someone with the same|

|question. Then tell them to be persistent with their interviews—they should ask for clarification and elaboration to the answers given. You |

|may even want to model an interview with a student in front of the class. Finally, tell them that they must take notes during the interview so|

|that they can complete a “write-up” summarizing their findings. They will need to share with their groups the general impression they gathered|

|from their interviews: how did people respond generally to the question? Was there consensus? Was there a wide range of responses? Why? After |

|they have each had a chance to interview 3-5 students give them time to do the “write-up.” Then ask them to get into groups and report on |

|their findings. |

|Purposes: Practice interview skills; Synthesize information; Enrich reading |

|Texts from Writing as Revision: “Sonny’s Blues”; “The Christmas Show”; “How to Watch Your Brother Die”; “The Border Patrol State”; “The |

|Homeland, Aztlán/El Otro Mexico” |

|Texts from The University Book: “Health as Wholeness: Wholeness as Balance”; “The Great American Desert”; “La Crisis”; “The Case Against |

|Babies” |

“More Please”

|Activity for groups of 4-5 people: This is an activity that must be done over at least two class periods, though it won’t take up the entire |

|time of either. After students have read a text for class, ask them to get into groups and come up with questions that the text doesn’t |

|answer; the questions can be ones that the text itself raises, or simply things the students don’t know much about. First you should encourage|

|them to brainstorm a long list of possible questions. Then they should refine the list until each student is charged with answering one of the|

|questions and reporting back. At a minimum, you should give students time during the following class period to report their findings to the |

|group. If you have more time in the class period after that, then consider asking the groups to produce a “companion” or “reader’s guide” to |

|the text. They will have to decide on the form and function of their guide—one group might want to create a glossary with expansive notes; |

|another might want to write up foot- or end-notes; yet another might want to produce an annotated section “for further reading.” |

|Purposes: Negotiate tasks; Think of writing as always, in a sense,” unfinished” |

|Texts from Writing as Revision: “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision”; “The Brain of Einstein”; “Science, Literature, and Rhetoric”; |

|“Space, Place, and Gender”; “Animal Rights and Beyond: The Search for a New Moral Framework and a Righteous Gumbo” |

|Texts from The University Book: “Can this Campus Be Bought?”; “A Note on the Interface Between Science and Religion”; “The Myth of Beneficent |

|Nature: The Risks of Herbal Preparations”; “We Must Stop the War on Medical Marijuana” |

“Review the Review”

|Activity for groups of 4-5 people: The class before you want to use this activity, ask the students to write a one-page review of a film they |

|have recently seen. Also, come to class with five copies of 5-6 brief, popular film reviews you have collected from a newspaper or online. |

|When the students come to class, ask them to get into groups and share their reviews with the other group members. If others have seen the |

|film a student has reviewed, encourage them to respond to the reviewer. Once everyone has had a chance to share their reviews with their |

|group mates, pass out the popular reviews. Ask the groups then to consider the following for each of the reviews: Does the reviewer think the |

|film is good or bad? How does the reviewer “rate” the film—are there stars or thumbs or what? What criteria, explicit or implicit, does the |

|author use to determine whether the film is good or bad? Finally, decide if this review is good or bad and explain why you have categorized it|

|that way. (The groups probably won’t be able to get through all 5 or 6 film reviews—the important thing is that they get to deliberate about |

|that last question). Once all the groups have produced several reviews of the reviews, point out to the students that popular reviews tend to |

|rely on the binary of good/bad because it is immediately understood and efficient. Next, talk to students about another way to review a |

|film—without recommending or overtly evaluating. Talk to them about how academic “reviews” tend to explain, critique, and argue about a larger|

|cultural issue, rather than simply evaluate the film in terms of good and bad. |

|Purposes: Complicate binary thinking; Induce beneficial conflict; Introduce academic writing about film |

|Texts from Writing as Revision: “Redesigning Pocahontas”; “Die Hard: The American Mythos”; “Seduction and Betrayal” |

|Texts from The University Book: “Split Skins: Female Agency and Bodily Mutilation in The Little Mermaid”; “Geronimo Framed”; “Hasta La Vista, |

|Baby: Anglo Spanish in the American Southwest” |

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