Warm-Up Activity Part I

 #STGmethreflectionweek1kevan

 My warm-up activity will be an activity a former co-worker and I made called WRITING RELAY.
It is a group based activity with lots of movement.

I will use this activity with the two classes of English Teachers for the Writing Methodology course.
For this warm-up I will put the students into two groups.
To start the activity I will write a sentence onto the whiteboard.
Thereafter when I yell start one member of each group will come to the front and write another sentence (their own) below my sentence. The goal is to make a story using my first sentence.
The board marker is used as a relay baton and passed among the group members.
We will go through each group member once. You can also have each member write two or more sentences per person depending on time.
Other group members may help their fellow group members writing at the board by giving advice (spelling, grammar, etc.) but they may only leave their seats when they have the baton.
I give points based on order of finish: 1st - 50; 2nd - 30; 3rd - 10. Points are also given for a logical story: 20 per group.
Lastly, we will read all the stories on the whiteboard from beginning to end. The goal here is to find errors. Each mistake is -1 points. If another group finds the error they will receive +1 for every error they identify.

This activity involves ERROR CORRECTION for everyone including me.
Especially there will be peer correction. In addition the teacher, me, will do some correction but only if no other student or group identifies it. Often students will also engage in self-correction while at the whiteboard.
Writing Relay also involves ASSISTANCE. Mainly it is students asking each other for help.

My hopes for this warm-up activity are to have the students be active.
I also hope that the lesson will show them a way to work on error correction and group support. I personally feel that caring and sharing (helping each other) is a very effective method for students and citizens in society to reach their goals of self improvement. All great change in society might have a person or idea as the spark but only by working with others is that change realized. In my class room I try to push student cooperation.
The problems that could occur: students are not active and they put little effort into the activity. Therefore the lesson will bomb. Students also fail to support each other in one or more groups. Lastly, students do not find most errors and I become the default error corrector. This would be too teacher-centered for me.