Ernest Hemming was once asked to come up with a story in six words. His reply;
"Baby shoes for sale. Never used."
I thought that would be a great idea for a filler activity or as a writing warm up exercise.
Lesson plan
1 Write the Hemmingway's story on the board and the questions words;
who
what
where
when
why
2 Now explain to the students that they have to think of questions using the question words
E.g Who do the shoes belong to?
Why are they selling them?
3 Check the student's grammar and spelling then answer their questions. Try to make your answers as dramatic as possible in order to fire their imagination.
4 Now ask students to write down their own six-word story.
5 They then show their story to their partner who asks them six questions using the question words.
6 Students swap roles.
Thanks to David Muir for putting me onto the story and check out his idea for using Flickr for this activity.
