How to work with short

texts
Adapted from Short and Sweet:
short texts and how to use them (Volume 1),
by Alan Maley
Reasons for working with short texts:

1. Short, complete texts can be highly productive in foreign language teaching;

SS can read them relatively rapidly and get on with activities,
2. There is a set of generalizable exercise types which can be applied to virtually
any text,
3. A large number and range of texts can be offered in a limited time,
4. Texts can be relatively simple but can contain mature and complex ideas,
5. Their concision demands interpretation and expansion; SS might be
encouraged to relate the texts to their own lives and previous experience.
Minimal input leads to maximum output.
What do we mean by generalizable exercise types?
They are categories of textual intervention (12 in total), which can be applied to
many texts.
1. EXPANSION

Key criterion: the text must be lengthened in some way.

Examples:

a. Add one or more sentences/paragraphs to the beginning and end of the text.
b. Add specified items within the text (e.g. adjectives, nouns, adverbs, etc.)
c. Add sentences within the text.
d. Add subordinate clauses within the text.
e. Add comment within the text.
f. Add a dialogue between characters.
2. REDUCTION

Key criterion: the text must be shortened in some way.

Examples:

a. Remove specified items (e.g. adjectives, objects, adverbs, etc.).

b. Turn it into a text message / a twitter / an Instagram post / an email.
c. Combine sentences reducing the number of words.
d. Remove clauses/sentences/words.
e. Summarize the story with a few sentences.
f. Turn it into a poem/story of 10 lines/words.
3. MEDIA TRANSFER
Key criterion: the text must be transferred into a different medium, genre or
format.
Examples:
a. Transfer it into a visual form (e.g. pictures, graphs, maps, tables, etc.).
b. Turn prose into poem (or vice versa).
c. Turn it into a newspaper article, a diary entry, a Facebook/Instagram
story/post, a TikTok video/post, etc.
d. Turn a headline / title into a proverb (that relates to the text).
e. Turn a poem into an advertising slogan.
f. Turn a prose narrative into a play / screenplay.
g. Turn a prose narrative into a comic (strip) / a graphic novel.
4. MATCHING
Key criterion: a correspondence must be found between the text and
something else.
Examples:
a. Match the text with a visual representation (a drawing, a painting, a
photograph, etc.)
b. Match the text with a title (provide alternative titles or subtitles)
c. Match the text with antoher text (in what way are they similiar?)
d. Match the text (or part of the text) with a song / piece of music / voice /
sound / a smell / a texture / a flavour, etc.
5. Selection / Ranking
Key criterion: the text must be chosen according to some given criterion (in the
case of Ranking, several texts must be placed in order of suitability for a given
criterion).
Examples:
a. Choose the best text for a given purpose (e.g. inclusion in a blog/IG post for
teenagers and young adults).
b. Choose the most/least difficult, formal, personal, complex, original, etc.
c. Choose the one you would turn into a TV series, film, etc. (why?).
d. Choose the one you would like / you think appropriate to tell (that is, to do
storytelling).
e. Choose the one you would like to be part of your personal anthology.
6. COMPARISON / CONTRAST
Key criterion: points of similarity/difference must be indentified btween two or
more texts.
Examples:
a. Identify words/expressions common to both texts.
b. Identify words/phrases in one text which are paraphrased in the other.
c. Identfy ideas common to both texts.
d. Identify facts present in one text and not in the other.
e. Compare grammatical/lexical complexity.
f. Compare characters, setting, plots, conflicts, etc.
g. Compare tone and language (literary devices, for example).
7. RECONSTRUCTION
Key criterion: coherence/completeness must be restored to an incomplete or
defective text.
Examples:
a. Insert appropriate words/phrases into gapped texts.
b. Reorder jumbled words, lines, sentences, paragraphs, etc.
c. Reconstruct sentences/texts from a word array / series of pictures, drawings,
etc.
d. Reconstitute a written text from an oral presentation.
e. Remove sentences/lines which do not `belong´ in the text.
8. REFORMULATION

Key criterion: the text must be expressed in a form different from the original
without loss of essential meanings.

Examples:

a. Retell a story from notes / memory.

b. Use / Provide keywords to rewrite a text.
c. Rewrite in a different format. (e.g. prose as poem, rap, TikTok video, etc.).
d. Rewrite in a different style/mood.
9. INTERPRETATION
Key criterion: personal knowledge/experience must be used to clarify and
extend the meaning(s) of the text.
Examples:
a. What does this recall from your own experience?
b. What does this remind you of?
c. What images does this throw up?
d. What associations does it have?
e. What questions would you wish to ask the author?
f. Formulate questions on the text beginning: what?, who?, where?, when?,
why?, how? (can these questions be answered? If not, resort to your
imagination and answer them).
g. Is the text true/likely?
h. What does the text not say that it might have said?
10. CREATING TEXT

Key criterion: the text is to be used as a springboard for the creation of new
texts.

Examples:
a. Write a parallel text on a different theme / changing a few/some elements.
b. Use the same story outline/model to write a new text.
c. Quarry (extract) words from text A to create a new text B.
d. Use the same title but write a new text.
e. Combine two or three texts to create a new text.
11. Analysis
Key criterion: the text is to be submitted to some form of language–focused
scrutiny.
Examples:
a. Work out the ratio of verbs to phrasal verbs / adjectives.
b. How many different tenses are used? Which are the most/least frequent?
Why?
c. How many content (or function) words does the text contain? Which are the
mosrt relevant?
d. List the different ways in which the word X is referred to in the text? It can be
a character, an object, etc.
e. List all the words connected with the theme(s) of the text (the ocean, the
death, the spring, etc.) Work on semantic fields.
12. PROJECT WORK
Key criterion: the text is used as a springboard for some related practical work
with a concrete outcome.
Examples:
a. Use the text as the centrepiece of an advertising campaign. First decide on
the product. Then design the campaign posters, advertising jingles, TikTok
video, etc. Finally, present the product (which must incorporate the text).
b. This text is about the problem of X. Design a questionnaire on this problem
for other groups to complete. Tabulate the results and present them to the
rest of the class.
c. This text presents a particular point of view. With a partner prepare a brief
report which either supports or disagrees with this point of view. In both
cases you will need to collect ideas and examples to support your own point
of view.
Do some ARTS & CRAFTS!
Time to work!
Scary Story #1:
(you can work individually or in pairs)

RECONSTRUCTING a text

1. Read the mixed-up paragraphs of this story and put them in order.
2. Think of posible words that could fill in the blank spaces.
3. The last sentece of the story is missing too. Provide the sentence.
4. Write a title to the story.
5. Illustrate the story (it can be a collage, drawing, painting, etc.)
6. Now, listen and compare…
A boy was digging at the edge of the garden when he saw a big toe. He tried to
pick it up, but it was stuck to something. So he gave it a good hard jerk, and it
came off in his hand. Then he heard something groan and scamper away.

The boy took the toe into the kitchen and showed it to his mother. “It looks
nice and plump,” she said. “I’ll put it in the soup, and we’ll have it for supper.”
That night his father carved the toe into three pieces, and they each had a piece.
Then they did the dishes, and when it got dark, they went to bed.

The boy fell asleep almost at once. But in the middle of the night, a sound
awakened him. It was something out in the street. It was a voice, and it was
calling to him. “Where is my to-o-o-o-o-e?” it groaned. When the boy heard
that, he got very scared.
But he thought, “It doesn’t know where I am. It never will find me.” Then he
heard the voice once more. Only now it was closer. “Where is my to-o-o-o-o-
e?” it groaned. The boy pulled the blankets over his head and closed his eyes.
“I’ll go to sleep,” he thought. “When I wake up it will be gone.”
But soon he heard the back door open, and again he heard the voice. “Where is
my to-o-o-o-o-e?” it groaned. Then the boy heard footsteps move through the
kitchen into the dining room, into the living room, into the front hall. Then
slowly they climbed the stairs. Closer and closer they came. Soon they were in
the upstairs hall. Now they were outside his door.
“Where is my to-o-o-o-o-e?” the voice groaned. His door opened. Shaking with
fear, he listened as the footsteps slowly moved through the dark toward his bed.
Then they stopped. “Where is my to-o-o-o-o-e?” the voice groaned.
“YOU’VE GOT
The title of the story is… And the picture of the story is…

The Big Toe

Toe for Soup
Digging at the edge of
the garden
The Boy and the Toe
Never pick up a lost toe
SELECTING/COMPARING

1) Which version did you like the most? Why?

2) Which one was the scariest? Which one the funniest?

ANALYSING

1) Find a sentence that combines past simple and past continuous.

2) Find the past tense of five irregular verbs.
3) Find a noun that means a quick, sharp, sudden movement.
4) Find a verb that implies a deep sound of pain.
5) Find a phrasal verb that means going away very quickly.
6) Find an adjective that means having a full rounded shape.
7) Find a synonym of cut.
REDUCTION & MEDIA TRANSFER
Pick one of the following:
1) Turn the story into a 50-word story.
2) Turn the story into a 10-line poem.
3) Turn it into a short newspaper article (a piece of news!).
4) Turn it into a comic (strip).

MATCHING
1. Find a piece of music that would go with the story.
2. Find ways to add sounds when telling/reading the story.

INTERPRETATION: Is there a moral to this story? If so, write it and add it to the
story.
Now it’s your turn!