Classroom activities to teach Writing

Sharing of experiences

One of the best ways to learn teaching practices is by sharing experiences with
other colleagues. Taking this idea into account, think about an effective activity
you have used in the teaching of writing.

Name of the activity: Writing an advertisement

Level (CEFR, primary, secondary, basic, intermediate, advanced): Basic

Age: 14-16 years’ old

Organization (individual, groups, whole class): Groups of three

Objective/Aim: Create a product and write an advertisement

Skill/ Language/ Strategy focus (vocabulary, grammar, etc): Writing

Materials: Paper craft, markers, colours, scissors

Time (aprox.): 40 minutes

Description / procedure of the activity (as detailed as possible):

Pre-writing
- Students look at some pictures about products, then work in pairs and discuss
the following questions:
1. Which of these things do you have or use?
2. Who uses them? Why do you think they are popular?
3. Which do you think will still be popular in the future?

- Teacher asks about the questions and make students participate and tell what
they discuss in pairs.

Writing
- Teacher shows an advertisement about a new type of laptop and say students
to focus on the words that are in bold.
- Students work in pairs to discuss about Why the words are in bold?
- Teacher respond to the question using the student ideas and clarifying some of
them.
- Teacher asks students to form groups of three, to create a product using the
materials and to create an advertisement for the product including some of the
words in bold from the previous exercise, they have to add minimum five
characteristics.
Post-writing
- Students come to the front, present their product and read the advertisement
they create.
- The whole class says which product they like to buy and why.

Possible adaptations (for teachers of other levels to use the activity): Students
can specify more on the characteristics of the product, write more than 5
characteristics.

Possible scaffolding / differentiation: Students can create a video using the

advertisement they wrote and develop speaking skills, they work in groups, so
they work together and help each other to create the video.

Comments and suggestions (if applicable): Students should work in teams of 3

maximum because we want all to participate, in some cases when there are more
students per group, some of them do not contribute to the group work.

What makes this activity successful? Students are motivated on creating a

product and also to sell their product by writing an engaging advertisement,
teachers can add a price to the best innovation and advertisement.