Snowball Writing

National Testing for English is next week, and although my students feel prepared for it, they are always most nervous about writing and asked me if we could do some additional practice.

So began the usual conundrum - I want to give them time to practice, but I don't have the time to read and revise a class worth of essays before next week. So I began my search for something that would meet their need but also keep my volume of work down. Happily, I stumbled across a post by Bonnie at PrestoPlans about Snowball Writing.

For this activity, students were given an image and one line of instruction: "Tell This Story". Students spent 10 minutes writing. They had 3 simple rules:

1. Don't overthink it.

2. Just keep writing.

3. Have fun!

Then - the best part - they were instructed to crumple up the paper and throw it! A snowstorm in March! Then, they picked up a crumpled paper (a "snowball"), and continued the first person's story.

After two rounds of this, students got back their original paper and were tasked with revising and editing the completed story, including writing a "clean" draft of it on the computer. They were allowed to help each other with rewriting.

Students got what they wanted (writing practice and a snowball "fight") and so did I (no grading a million papers right before national testing). Win-win!