The Easy Life

I’ve been wanting to try Mike Peto’s Write and Discuss. Nothing has really been stopping me, other than all the other wonderful ideas I’ve been trying out from his new book, My Perfect Year: A Practical Guide for Language Teachers.

I came across a movie short (The Easy Life) that I felt was really compelling, and somewhat creepy, that I just had to use in class. I like to use shorts that have a twist at the end so that students are always wondering what the plot twist will be. I decided to use this with my level 4’s and to try out Write and Discuss at the same time.

This is the movie short:

I have found that my students get easily frustrated with traditional Movie Talk if the short lasts longer than a minute. It is just too much stop and go for them. So, I quickly changed to picture talking my shorts by making slides from screenshots.

Here is the slides presentation I created:

(You can download a copy here).

After learning the basic theme of the short, I tried the Write and Discuss process with my students.

Write and Discuss means I begin a summary of the story we have been working on by writing one word on the board and prompting students to call out one word at a time to complete the summary. The challenge my level 4’s had was keeping with one word or very short phrases. This is essential, however, because there is always that one “parrot” in class who will chirp out the answers or the entire storyline before anyone else has a chance.

At the same time as I write on the board, the students write in their class notebooks. This helps them learn word order, practice spelling, and practice longer, more complex sentences.  After Write and Discuss, I had them work with partners on creating a more fleshed out version by adding whatever details they wanted. They could be taken from the short or imagined. The more details they could add the better.

The adding details took most of one class period and about 1/2 of the next. On a whim, I had them spread their completed stories around the room, gallery-walk-style. Students took a stack of post-it notes and made comments on stories. They had to make a minimum of three comments (which means they each ONLY made three comments):

1. Something they liked.
2. Something that was similar to their story.
3. Something that was different from their story.

We then shared stories and comments, laughed, and made comparisons.

At the end, I had them write a response to the following question.

Should you learn and should you do homework?
(The movie short is about a girl who let a “doll” complete her homework, eventually becoming the doll and the doll becoming human).

The only thing I graded* was the response to the question.

I also created an embedded reading, if you would like to use that. However, after we had completed the write and discuss, I felt it was unnecessary. This is the first time I have ever done a story that did not have an embedded reading at the end, so I admit that I’m not sure how I feel about that!

*I am really trying to limit my grading to things that are truly essential. We do a lot of conversing (interpersonal communication) and listening activities. There are very few grades in my level 4 gradebook.