Multiple Story "Put the Sentences in Order"

Once again, this is a post-reading activity which I learned from Annabelle Williamson (LaMaestraLoca) at IFLT this summer. It is actually an incredibly easy and quick activity to create (outside of cutting lots of sentence strips) and to facilitate. It will involve at least three different readings, with which your students are very familiar.

Pre-class directions

1. Pick at least three different readings with which your students are familiar and you wish to review.
2. Type up at least 15 sentences in the target language in a list for each reading in a large font. These sentences need to be in order of that particular reading. Do not number the sentences. You will also need to space each sentence.
3. Cut each of the sentences into strips (one sentence per strip). 
4. Type the titles of the readings and cut into strips.  
5. Mix all of the strips together.
6. You will need to repeat this as many times for groups of three, e.g., if you have 30 students, you will have 10 piles of identical strips.

Class directions

1. Divide the class into groups of three.
2. Give a pile of strips to each group.
3. Tell the class that there are three stories' worth of sentences in the pile. Their task is to separate the sentences according to the reading and then to arrange those sentences in order of the story.
4. When a group is finished, review its sentences to determine if it got the order correct. 

Observations

1. This is a higher-order thinking activity, because it not only involves students knowing which sentence strip goes with which story but then to put those sentence strips in order - both of these when written in the target language.
2. This is a quick 10-minute activity but a fun one to watch.
3. Students are receiving repetitions of familiar understandable messages in this activity.
4. I love seeing how the students work collaboratively on this activity. First, they separated the strips by story, and then each student took one of the stories to put into order. 
5. I was surprised at how much students remembered from the earlier stories, even though it had been a month since we did the first story.
6. If different stories have similar vocabulary, all the better, since this now requires to read each sentence strip closely to determine from which story the strip comes. I had two stories involving monsters, so students had to do close reading to determine of which story the sentence strip was a part.

Vocabulary Highlighter Game

Exams are coming up in a few weeks for my students, so every day this week, I have been trying to do some quick vocabulary review activities (such as Hot Seat and Quick Draw) that will both engage students in order to prepare them for the exam and will not take up more than 15 minutes of time. This is a popular activity which I learned from a colleague at my former school. Though not necessarily a CI activity per se, it is quick and engaging for students, and it involves highlighters!

Preparation
For this, you will need to create a word cloud of vocabulary words which you want to review. I have found that 25 words is a good amount. Unfortunately, finding a website/extension for the creation of word clouds has been difficult, because many websites like Wordle do not work on Chrome or are not compatible with Windows 10. I use a MS Word extension to create my word clouds. Google Docs also has an extension for word clouds, but I have found that MS Word has more capabilities.

Below is a video for creating a word cloud on MS Word.

In creating a MS word cloud for this activity, I use the following settings:

1. Font: Arial
2. Colors: Black on White
3. Layout: Half on Half (this will allow for words to be both horizontal and vertical)
4. Case: Intelligent

Here is a MS word cloud which I made for my Latin 2 students

Directions

1. Pair up students.
2. You can have students either sit next to each other or across from each other.
3. Students will need a common surface between them. It can be a desk, or if your class is deskless like mine, then I had students sit on the floor with a whiteboard between them.
4. Each student in a pair needs to have a different-colored highlighter, i.e., no two students who are paired up can have the same color highlighter.
5. Give each student a handout of the word cloud.
6. There will be two different rounds of play, so have each pair of students use only one of the word clouds for the first round.
7. Have each pair place the word cloud between them, and give students roughly 30-45 seconds to look at the words in order to familiarize themselves with both the words and the layout.
8. You as the teacher call out a definition in English.
9. The goal for each student is to be the first person to highlight the correct word.
10. After about 9-10 words, now tell students that they have to use their NON-DOMINANT hands to highlight the correct word. Do this for about 9-10 words.
11. After most of the words have been called, have students count how many words they each got correct. They will know based on the color of their highlighter. 
12. To start the second round, students will now use the other word cloud.
13. Tell students that they need to put this word cloud in a new orientation, i.e., if it was laid out horizontal before, now it needs to be vertical. This makes the second round more challenging, since although students know what words to expect, the words are in a "different place," since the orientation is different.
14. Repeat steps 8-10 again.
15. When finished, have students create their final totals for both rounds.

Observations

1. As I said, this is a fast, quick activity. It lasts about 10 minutes. 
2. Depending on your students, it can get VERY competitive.
3. I have a tub of different-colored highlighters in the event that students have the same color or do not have a highlighter. I suppose one can use markers for this activity.
4. Having students use their non-dominant hand for part of it adds to the novelty of the activity.
5. Variation: Because vocabulary does not exist in a language isolated outside of a context, you can make a word cloud out of phrases in the target language. I know that Wordle will allow you to do this.
6. It is not really a CI activity, but it is definitely fun to watch!