Collaborative Activities That Inspire Students to Write

Ms. Giordano’s fourth graders stand in front of their families with ear-to-ear grins on their faces. They have just finished a performance about the American Revolution and colonial life that featured a variety of different forms of writing, all of which are now bound in a book for students and their families to keep. The performance included persuasive-argument-style “stump speeches” as if delivered to fellow patriots at a tavern, and commercial storyboards for bygone products (chamber pots were among the most popular).

There’s an advice column in the style of a Dear Abby letter crafted about the challenges of kids’ chores in colonial life and a “breaking news” piece about the events of the Boston Tea Party, with firsthand eyewitness reports.

All of this work, and the genuine excitement around it, didn’t come from the students just being told to write. Instead, it came from students being invited to play. I’ve spent years using theater games to foster young people’s abilities to think on their feet, building their communication, collaboration, and social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. I have developed a way to help students build their ideas by playing theater games, and I call it “writing on your feet.”

This is a kind of hybrid of improv and sketch that incorporates content in meaningful ways, allowing students to tap into their intuition, brainstorm collaboratively, and generate quantities of ideas that would not be possible if they were working alone, staring at a blank page or a blinking cursor.

COLLABORATIVE GAMES THAT INSPIRE STUDENT WRITING

The following are two examples of prewriting games that can be used across a variety of content areas to practice this technique of “writing on your feet.”

1. Slide show. In this game, students talk about what they have learned and actively collaborate with their peers to generate even more ideas. To play, assign one student as the narrator and choose a small group of three to five students to become the “slides.”

The narrator announces the title of the slide show, which can differ based on the objective of the activity—“The Lifecycle of a Butterfly” for a science lesson or “What I Did on My Winter Vacation” for a more SEL-focused lesson. The slide-show name can even be a chapter or title of a book, allowing you to creatively assess comprehension.

Then, the narrator describes the first “image” of the slide show while the small group stands with their backs to the audience, ready to embody it. When the narrator finishes the description, with as much detail as they can, they call out, “Swipe!” On that cue, the small group of students turn around and, without discussing it, create the scene. They can become characters described, bystanders witnessing an event, or even inanimate objects in a room. Their job is to work together to make the scene that the narrator described come to life.

The narrator uses their peers as inspiration and continues to develop the story or argument for at least two more slides. If it is a narrative, like “How the Animals Escaped the Zoo,” this works to help reinforce story structure. If it is a persuasive argument, like “Why Pets Should Be Allowed in School,” this allows the narrator to develop their argument and use transition words.

Because students are “writing on their feet,” the game becomes a fun way to strengthen vocabulary, sequencing, persuasive language, and writer’s voice. Animating the words, intuitively and collaboratively, without preplanning, can be liberating for students. It also frees up their imagination for when they later put pen to paper to extend this into a writing exercise.

After students play this game, you can encourage them to write down their own versions of the story they just witnessed, adding in additional elements or adjusting the narrative to meet a given criterion. Because students are engaged in either watching the story or actively acting it out, they are more likely to jump into the writing process, since they feel invested in the activity and have had time to develop the ideas they will write about.

2. Commercials. Through this game, students practice making claims, supporting ideas with evidence, and convincing an audience using persuasive language as they create their own commercials. Later, they can refine their commercial script or turn it into an essay.

To play, students work in small groups and invent a product relevant to the material they’re studying in class. From there, they create a short commercial with the following elements: a clear title, a funny or dramatic reenactment of what happens when you don’t have the product (the problem), and a call to action that incites the viewer to use the item with at least two compelling reasons why.

You can also add in more elements: writing and performing a jingle or slogan (extra points if it rhymes), sharing where/how the product can be purchased (online? an 800 number?), providing customer testimonials (voice-overs are fun here), or even listing funny side effects à la a pharmaceutical product.

Students write their commercials collaboratively and then perform them for the class. From there, you can encourage students to further refine their commercials independently to deepen their writing practice, using persuasive writing words or content connected to your unit.

The game adapts easily across subject areas, and while it boosts persuasive writing, it can be used to reinforce content as well. For example, students reading Matilda could invent products that characters in the novel might need, like “Trunchbull-Proof Tests” or “Gag Gifts for Grumpy Parents.”

The idea of commercials can even be adapted to a biology unit where students might “sell” animal adaptations like stronger hide, longer tails, or waterproof feathers. In each of these examples, students actively work to persuade the viewer to purchase the product, so the stakes feel exciting, playful, and collaborative.

Whichever activity you choose, you can be confident that students will be excited to work together to creatively generate ideas and feel prepared to tackle their next writing assignment.