If Franklin, Provost and Le Guin Walk Into My Writing Class ...

Three writing activities that will help your students write better

I love reading a lot and I love creative writing activities. I love playing with writing and I believe one of the things that help students improve their English is writing. Over the years I’ve tried to motivate my students to write better using different techniques and activities. Here are a few of them:

The Benjamin Franklin Method:

Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write by studying essays. His method was very simple: He would read an essay closely, then jot down just the key points. A few days later, he’d try to reconstruct the whole essay from his notes. Then he would compare his version with the original, trying to understand what he did well, what he missed. I’ve adapted this into a three-session classroom sequence that I now use when teaching essays with my students:

Session 1: Present the model text (a body paragraph, or a full essay depending on level). Go through it together, highlighting the structure: topic sentences, connectors, thesis statements, whatever the text is built from. Discuss purpose and tone. Tell students to take notes.

Session 2: Briefly review the keywords or structure from the previous class, then do short drills on the connectors, phrases, or paragraph components they’ll need. This is also good to review for grammar or vocabulary.

Session 3: Tell students to rebuild the original text from memory, using only their keyword notes. Once they finish, ask them to compare their version with the original one, underlining what’s missing, highlighting what they did well, and reflecting on organisation and word choice.

Session 4: At this stage, they are ready to write their own essay on a similar topic.

We become better if we read and write more and in the exercise above, the students read carefully a better model, before moving to their essays and once they are given the task, they feel more confident to start. This activity serves well as a drill for writing classes.

The Gary Provost “Write Music” Exercise

Gary Provost describes how to form a better paragraph and explains as follows:

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.

Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.”

We can use what he said in our classes. I’m listening to him and stealing from him. In the classroom, give students a paragraph consisted of 5-word sentences and have them read it. Ask what they noticed. Then show them a second version of the same paragraph written with longer and shorter sentences. Ask them to read that too, and ask them to compare the paragraphs.

Once a student has noticed the difference, the importance of sentence variety becomes more comprehensible. We can also give them 5-word-sentence paragraphs and ask them to improve. Here is a sample exercise:

Save this paragraph. Find its rhythm by adding adjectives, adverbs and clauses.

Travelling teaches us many things. We meet people from everywhere. New cultures open our minds. We try new local food. Languages become easier to understand. Travelling also reduces daily stress. We see beautiful places worldwide. Every trip creates lasting memories.

Here is the improved version:

Travelling teaches us many valuable things. We meet friendly people who come from different countries. New cultures really open our minds. We try new and tasty local food that we never tasted before. Foreign languages slowly become easier to understand when we practise every day. Travelling also reduces our daily stress a lot. We see truly beautiful places worldwide that we always remember. Every trip creates special lasting memories.

Are Short Sentences Always Bad? Taking Le Guin to the EFL Class:

Ursula K. Le Guin has a similar exercise in Steering the Craft. She asks writers to rewrite a piece using only short sentences, then rewrite the same piece using only long ones. This exercise also helps students notice the rhythm of the sentences. Here is an exercise you can try with students:

Give them this short paragraph:

The rain started. It was cold. She didn’t have an umbrella. She waited under a tree. The bus was late.

Ask them to rewrite it in one long sentence, joining the ideas with connectors.

Although she had left the house early that morning, hoping to avoid the crowds, she found herself standing at the bus stop for almost an hour, watching the rain fall harder every minute.

Read both versions aloud. Ask students: How did each one sound? Encourage them to compare and choose the one they liked and ask why they liked it.

Actually I like how the short sentences make me feel about a story. Contrary to common belief, short sentences are not always boring. In fact, when used well, they become very powerful. My daughter writes short stories almost entirely in short sentences, and they do not feel boring or weak at all, they feel fast, urgent, like the story is happening right now. Short sentences can build tension and speed up a scene.

I used to run creative writing workshops with teens and adults and I love playing with the language. I think every writer has their style and these styles make us read what they write. I have a tangled mind and sometimes I use longer sentences and then write short ones. I don’t like periods, I love ellipses… and well, what about your style?

And what do you think about these? Do you have any writing activities to add to my list?