One Word at a Time - Pass and Tell

This is an activity which I just recently learned from Emma Vanderpool, a fellow Latin teacher, and it is based on Bob Patrick's One Word at a Time (OWAT) activity. Emma modified this as a pre-reading activity to introduce new vocabulary, which is the original intent of an OWAT. However, I made some changes and used it as a pre-writing activity to prepare students for a free write and therefore used known vocabulary. Here are directions for either use:

Pre-Reading (to introduce new, targeted vocabulary) - here are Emma's directions

1. Students should sit in columns.
2. Every student has a piece of paper. Inform students that they will cooperatively write a 6-sentence story. 

3. A new target word is projected on the board. The students must use that word in a sentence to begin the story.

4. Students then pass the piece of paper to the student behind them, and a new word is projected on the board.

5. The receiver should read the sentence(s) written, illustrate the latest sentence, and then write a new sentence to the story.

6. The paper should be passed 6 times

Pre-Writing (to prepare students for a writing. This uses known vocabulary) - these are my directions

1. Students should sit in columns in groups of 4.
2. Every student has a piece of paper. Inform students that they will cooperatively write a 8-sentence story. 
3. Two known words are projected on the board. The students must choose ONE of the words to create a sentence to begin the story. Here are my Google Slides which I projected. 
4. Students then pass the piece of paper to the student behind them, and a new choice of words is projected on the board. 
5. The receiver should read the sentences written, illustrate the latest sentence, and then write a new sentence to the story. 
6. The paper should be passed 8 times. 
7. Spend around 4 minutes for each slide. In the beginning, students probably will not need 4 minutes, but as more sentences are added, they will need that time to read over what has already been written and to have time to figure out what to add.

Observations 

1. It was fun for students to read their "stories" afterwards and to see where the stories went based on their original sentence.
2. Giving students a choice of known words for a pre-writing activity allowed for more variety in creating their sentences, BUT I will also try this out with giving new words one at a time like in a regular OWAT to see how it works in previewing vocabulary.
3. Although the stories became rather random, the stories still made sense to a degree!
4. Making students use a particular word(s) for their sentences gave them parameters but still gave them a degree of freedom in how to use that word(s).
5. This activity requires critical thinking, because students not only have to understand what they read but they have to create a new sentence on their own which will continue on with what has been previously written.