One of the most important (and most difficult) steps before writing is organizing our ideas. To do so, we have to brainstorm ideas on the topic and write them down. After that, we can analyze them and choose the best for our essay.
We did a very easy-to-prepare activity in order to get ready for writing opinion essays. Here it goes!
Prep time: 5 minutes.
Materials: paper, color pens and a timer. Dictionaries if needed.
How-to:
There are 25 students in my class, so I prepared 5 topics. For each topic, we have a FOR title and an AGAINST title. I wrote a title on top of each paper (10 in total, 5 for and 5 against) and distribute the papers on empty tables.
The students are divided in pairs or groups of three. Each person in the group has a different color pen.
STAGE 1:
The groups sit in front of a different paper and have 4 minutes to write as many ideas as they can on the topic. After the time is up, the students move to another table. Every group visit all the tables.
STAGE 2:
The students regroup themselves according to the color of their pens. After that, each new group sits in front of a filled paper from Stage 1. They have 15 minutes to analyze the ideas on the paper, choose the best three, and write a paragraph using them.
We had a lot of fun practicing, let me know how it goes if you try it!
The Yellow Tile Path 