Story Activity Combo: Most Important Sentence + Mi Lápiz

This morning I woke up thinking about my lesson plan and decided to toss it out the window. It was supposed to be a storyboard + true/false activity that I was really excited about when planning, but then yesterday I realized – we had JUST done a read and draw last week. Whoops…suddenly having them draw again, less then 4 class days later seemed less than enjoyable.

I was running through my list of favorites, trying to come up with something that didn’t involve me dashing to the copier between PLC and first hour when I settled on this combination of activities – and I love how it worked out!

Students need a reading (either copies, or projected), a piece of paper, and a pencil.

I had students draw a line down the middle of their paper, then number 1-10, skipping lines. (You could have them do more than 10 if your reading is long, but I’d stay below 15). Then I gave them 12 minutes to write the 10 most important sentences to summarize the story. They’re familiar with The Most Important Sentence activity, so this didn’t require a lot of explanation.

Next, they swapped their papers with a partner, and we set up for Mi Lápiz. Each pair needs only one pencil, one die, and their papers. I had students translate the sentences their partner had chosen as the most important to play!

We played for 8 minutes, then I had each student take out a pencil to finish on their own. Super simple to set up, no copies needed, and great to get more interaction with our story!

We had a shorter class period due to PLC time in the morning, however, in the future I think I’d like to add in the comparison step from The Most Important Sentence – when students discuss why they chose those sentences and look at what they have in common and what they have recorded differently!