Retrieval Practice - Complete the Sentence

As I continue to look into retrieval practice and its role in language output, I am learning that in some ways the concept itself is not as difficult as I thought when I base it on Henshaw's definition of output ("expressing meaning retrieving from one's system"). Retrieval practice is a very sheltered, guided way for students to output what is in their system but also a way for their system to gain more input.

Recently, in my Latin 1 classes I did a very simple, short activity which I am certain that many of you have done before but maybe never viewed it as a form of retrieval practice: Complete the Sentence. Essentially, it is cloze-sentence in nature. 

• I wrote a basic, unseen Latin sentence on the board but left out a word, leaving a line instead (and the part of speech underneath).

         Example: Uxor Cheetos __(verb)___. (translated as "The wife ________ Cheetos.")

• I told students to copy down the sentence on their whiteboards and to fill in the blank with one Latin word which we have covered that will complete the sentence. The sentence must make sense. I gave them 30-45 seconds.
• You as the teacher write down 3-4 words of your own which can complete the sentence.
• After 30 seconds, I then had students stand up (a' la Retrieval BINGO).
• I told them that I had written down words of my own and if I called out their word, they were to sit down.
• Whoever was left standing after I called out my words read their word aloud to the class and received a small prize. 

Observations

1. Wow, what a simple activity but one in which you can get a lot of bang for your buck!
2. This is such a low-stakes, guided output activity that in many ways, it does not even look like "output".
3. In the end, when those students who are remaining standing read their word, that is input for the rest of the class. 
4. Most students did not pick the obvious word "eat". Again, I was surprised at what words students wrote down, because many chose words which I had not been targeting yet but somehow had found their way into these students' language systems.
5. As always, the kinesthetic aspect of having students stand up and then sit down if I called their word added a huge student buy-in component. 
6. Because students already knew the sit-down component of the activity, many took effort in choosing their word carefully in their attempt to outguess me. Little did they realize that they were activating the retrieval process from their language system.
7. There is some degree of higher-order thinking involved, because students cannot just put down any word. Their word choice had to fulfill the required part of speech AND make sense in the context, e.g., in the example I gave, students could not write down the word "est (is)," because although a verb, it does not make sense in the context of the sentence.
8. A caveat - do not expect students to know grammatical terms/parts of speech. While there were many students who did understand what a verb was, I had to explicitly say over and over again, "I want an action word. Give me a Latin word which explains what the uxor did in relation to the Cheetos."
9. I would NOT turn this into a grammar exercise unless I knew that ALL students could do it flawlessly. I could have written "Ego Cheetos __________," and asked students to give me the first person singular form of a verb which completed the sentence, but to be honest, that is way too much for Latin 1 students who have only had 8 weeks of Latin. Way too much going on for students to focus. My focus is on meaning, not form.
10. Oh my gosh, after we did this, students BEGGED me to do another round (or two)! I had to come up with another sentence on the spot, so I chose a different part of speech for them to do (adjective).
11. Other fill-in-the-blank sentences can be adjectives, persons, family members, food items, places, rooms of the house, etc. 

Extension activity

1. Using the sentence, pick a word to complete the sentence. From there, do a One Word Image or do TPRS/Storyasking.