FL436 / Dr. J.

Smith
David Balmaceda

Format for Writing Activity

Format for Writing Activities at the Intermediate Level (Bridge Activities)

Context:
Reading El Leador.
Function:

Story or narration

Purpose:

This is a follow up activity from the reading El Leador. It encourages

students to use the preterit form of regular and irregular verbs through
developing or creating a story (narrative). It also encourages the use of
recently learned vocabulary from the reading passage.

Student Task:

The pre-reading, reading, and after-reading activities themselves serve as

an introduction, or pre-writing activity.
Before getting into the writing itself, there is a grammar exercise that helps
students review and focus on one of the main structures used to write a
narration or a story (the preterit.)
From 4 sentences taken from the reading the students identify the tense in
which the verbs in the sentences are conjugated. They also write the
infinitive form of the verbs to later be able to write about the rules of
conjugation of regular and irregular verbs in the preterit form.
Students then circle and underline regular and irregular verbs in the
reading, and create new sentences with them in the preterit form.
With the newly created sentences, students have the option of developing a
new funny story, or writing the end of the story using the words provided in
a chart. (see activity 7)

Grammatical Features Since this is an intermediate level, there is a focus on the use and practice
and/or Lexical Items
of the preterit form of verbs through the writing of a narration or story.
to be Practiced
Other:

In order to motivate students to write a paragraph, they are given two

options, and can choose the one they like the most. No matter what option
they choose, they will have to use the preterit form to be able to complete
the task. (see activity 7)
In activity 6, it is expected that students write at least 7 sentences using the
7 verbs in the preterit form that they will find in the reading. Therefore, in
option B it expected that students choose at least 7 verbs from the box as
well. In that way if students choose option B they will write a paragraph of
at least 7 sentences too.
Skill-getting and skill-using activities were designed for this writing task.
(see activities, 5,6 and 7.)