Read, Write, Draw, Pass

This is another awesome post-reading activity which I learned from Linda Li this past summer (Martina Bex also has a great post about this activity). It is loosely based on a party game called Paper Telephone/Telephone Pictionary, and it works great as a way to get students to review a known reading.

Directions

1. Every student needs paper, pen/pencil, and the reading passage which you want to review.
2. Divide students into groups of six. There may be groups of seven or as little as four, but try to avoid groups of three. Arrange students in a circle.
3. Have students fold paper vertically/hot-dog style. Tell students that they will only be drawing on one side of the paper.
4. Tell students to pick ONE sentence from the story and to write it at the top of their paper. Write it as it appears in the story, i.e. students are NOT to translate the sentence.
5. Have students PASS their paper to the person on their left. 
6. Now have students draw a visual representation of that sentence underneath it. Leave some space between the sentence and picture.
7. Stop students after 45 seconds, and have students FOLD the sentence over the back of the paper so that it cannot be seen. Only the picture should be showing.
8. Have students PASS their paper to the person to their left. It is important that students do NOT pass until you say so.
9. Now have students find the ONE sentence from the reading that matches the drawing. Students are to write the sentence underneath the picture. Leave some space between the picture and the sentence.
10. Stop students after 45 seconds, and have students FOLD the picture over to the back so that only the sentence is showing.
11. Have students PASS their paper to the person on their left. It is important that students do not pass until you say so.
12. Continue this pattern of drawing, passing, writing, and passing until students in a group of six have their original paper - it should be a total of six passes. For groups smaller than six, then they will continue to pass until the sixth pass. For groups larger than six, they will not get their original paper back so they will have to find theirs.
13. Tell students to unfold their papers to see how accurate others were with drawing pictures/writing sentences for their original sentence.

Observations

1. Having taken part in this activity myself when learning Mandarin from Linda Li, I can tell you that it is great activity for post-reading on so many different levels: re-reading of a known text (thus getting in more repetitions of language), comprehension of what is being read demonstrated non-verbally through a picture, comprehension of what is being communicated in a picture and writing that in the target language via the story/passage.
2. Depending on students' interpretation of the pictures/sentences given to them, this activity mimics the game Telephone, because the sentences and pictures can begin to change. It is always fun to hear some students at the end talk about how their original sentence changed.