Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Students Write Their Own Version

(TESOL Ideas--Interesting Input plus Production Prompts)

Sample Input: docs, pub

Production Prompts: docs, pub (comic book paper HERE)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (online here or here). Note: This can be copied onto a word document and printed--example HERE (select 4 pages per sheet when printing).  Or it can be read online.  It’s not necessary to read the whole thing.  Some of it will give the flavor.

Discuss the similarities and differences with Vietnamese schools. Then students write the Vietnamese version of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”.  (They can also do this as a comic book).

This is another entry for my Interesting Input plus Production Prompts project.

I had previously written about how popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid is here in Vietnam.  So I was guessing my teen student would react well to it, and they did.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid can be found on the Internet in several places.  It can be found at esl-bits at this link HERE.  Or the audio book can be found on Youtube HERE.  

(These links may go dead at some point in the future, but you can probably find other versions online easily enough.)

I copied some of Diary of a Wimpy Kid onto handouts in my class, but it wasn't necessary to do more than a few pages for them to get the idea. (I played the audio book for them a bit longer, but not much longer.)

For production, I discussed with the students briefly which parts of this book were unique to American schools, and which parts applied to Vietnam.  (I'm currently teaching in Vietnam, but obviously you can change the context to wherever you happen to be teaching.)
Students then put some similarities or differences into the table on the handout.  Students then had the production prompt: "Imagine you are writing a diary about what it’s like to be a kid in Vietnamese middle school.  What could you say?"  They could do this either as a written story or as drawing a comic book.

https://youtu.be/wf0D82bBsJY?si=7vCZXF6V_Ftsq3jO

https://esl-bits.org/ESL.English.Learning.Audiobooks/Wimpy.Kid/contenido.html

What things are the same as middle school in Vietnam?	What things are different from middle school in Vietnam?

Imagine you are writing a diary about what it’s like to be a kid in Vietnamese middle school.  What could you say?

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Students draw and write and their own endings on comic book paper

(TESOL Ideas--Interesting Input plus Production Prompts)

Input	Productive Activity
Choose any comic book from this folder.  Read part of the story, but don’t read the ending.	Students draw and write and their own endings on comic book paper. Notes: This can work with any story, but in particular suggest doing Dracula up to the end of part 1, or The Time Machine up to the end of part 1--or part 2, Treasure Island up to the end of part 1, Or A Cool Deal up to slide 95

* Comic Book Paper HERE (Taken from this website)

* Comic Book Folder HERE.  The folder contains:

--The Thrifty Spendthrift by Carl Barks

--Uncle Scrooge: A Cool Deal by Carl Barks

--The Golden Fleecing by Carl Barks

--The Loony Lunar Gold Rush by Carl Barks

--Marvel Classics Comics #15 "TREASURE ISLAND"

--The Time Machine Classics Illustrated 133

--Marvel Classic Comics #9 "Dracula"

--Bone by Jeff Smith

I was looking for a new activity to add to my "Interesting Input plus Production Prompts".  I already had several activities in which students wrote their own endings to stories, but I sensed my students were getting a little tired of writing the stories out, so to switch things up a bit, I decided to give them comics as the input, and to have them write comics as the production.  So far, it has been working well.

I was searching the Internet for short plays or dramas suitable for the ESL classroom, and I found this website:

https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/reading/index.shtml

The index of plays isn't actually located until halfway down the site, so scroll all the way down until you see:

Reader's Theater Scripts and Teacher's Guides

Now, to be honest, I haven't actually used any of these plays in my classroom yet.  But I may use them in the future, and so I wanted to make this blogpost to remind myself.

I'm also adding this website to my Interesting Input plus Production Prompts index.  (The input is reading the plays.  The production would be acting out the play--or at least reading it aloud in groups.)

The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man: Write Your Own Twisted Fairy Tale

(TESOL Materials--Time Fillers, Writing, Storytime, Interesting Input plus Production Prompts)

Google Drive Folder HERE

Slideshow: slides, pub

Worksheet: docs, pub

This is the latest entry in my Interesting Input plus Production Prompts collection.

The input is a reading of The Gingerbread Man (link to PDF HERE).  Then, I ask my students how the story might be different if the Gingerbread Man was made out of stinky cheese instead.  Then we go to the Stinky Cheese Man (link to picture book HERE--skip to p.36.)

Then the production prompt is for students to write their own twisted version of a famous fairy tale: docs, pub.

In my class, they were having trouble thinking of ideas, so I gave them a few more examples from the Stinky Cheese Man book.  First, I asked them if they knew the story of the Frog Prince.  They said they did, and I asked the class to tell it to me.  Then, I showed them the version on pages 18-19.  I did the same thing with the Ugly Duckling (p.14-17) and The Princess and the Pea (p.12-13), etc.

In fact, once I got thinking about it, there's no shortage of examples of subverted fairy tales out there:

This Playlist of Fractured Fairy Tale Cartoons, for example, could also be used as input.

Or this copy of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.  

In fact, as I thought about it, I remembered I had even written a subverted fairy tale back in 6th grade: The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood--which I then went on to film and add to my Storytime collection.

Think of a well-known fairy tale or folk tale.  Retell the fairy tale, but give it a twist to make it different than the original

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The Monkey's Paw: Reading and Writing Prompt

(TESOL Materials--Time Fillers, Writing, Interesting Input plus Production Prompts)

I'm continuing to look for new materials to add to my "Interesting Input plus Production Prompts" project.  I was searching around on esl-bits and found the original version of The Monkey's Paw.  

It seemed like a good story to use: nice and short, and also suitably creepy.  (As I've mentioned before, my teenage students love horror stories.)

The original ungraded version could almost be used in the ESL classroom (with a high level class, of course.)  The sentences are pretty short and simple and easy to understand.  An advanced level class could almost understand it without help.

There's just some vocabulary that would need to be adjusted to make it more comprehensible for an ESL class.

I was in the process of trying to re-write the story myself, when I thought to myself, "You know what?  I bet somebody's done this already."

So, I searched for "The Monkey's Paw ESL" and sure enough, found a pretty good version here.  For the most part, it manages to preserve the vibrancy of the original text, while also simplifying the vocabulary where necessary.

For the purposes of sharing this version with my students, I took the liberty of copying and pasting it over to Google docs, so I could print it out and distribute in in my classroom (docs, pub).  While I was at it, I also edited it slightly--e.g. cleaned up a few typos and grammar mistakes that had been in the original.

I distributed the google document to my students, and we read it together in class.

The production prompt, then, is to write about what happens to the Monkey's Paw next.  The Monkey's Paw finds a new owner, who will make new wishes.  How will these new wishes go wrong?

For the purposes of giving my students maximum freedom, I left the prompt as wide open as possible--i.e. I didn't specify who the new owner would be.  But for students who were having trouble getting started, I gave them some helpful ideas.

"Imagine there's a Vietnamese boy who wishes to be a gamer.  But then" (spooky voice) "the wish goes horribly wrong."

or "Imagine there's a Vietnamese boy who wants to be a famous tiktoker.  So he makes the wish but then" (spooky voice) "the wish goes horribly wrong."

Etc.  Other ideas I gave were students who wished to get a band 9 on the IELTS, or become a successful businessman, or get into a top university, etc.

[Sidenote: The original story of The Monkey's Paw states that the paw was only cursed for 3 owners, and that this old couple is now the 3rd owner, so presumably in the original story the curse of the Monkey's Paw is now finished.  But I just ignored this little detail when designing the production prompt, and so far my students haven't noticed the contradiction.]

Production worksheet is here: docs, pub

Now, imagine that someone else finds the Monkey’s paw, and tries to make three wishes.  Write about what will happen next.

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That's Good! That's Bad! by Margery Cuyler and David Catrow: Storytime and Writing Prompt

(TESOL Materials--Time Fillers, Writing, Storytime, Interesting Input plus Production Prompts)

Google Folder HERE

The Storytime slides are here: slides, pub.  (The images come from this Youtube video here.)

I also created a sequencing activity for this story (cut up and then have the students put this in the correct order): docs, pub

I came across this story, and I thought it would be a great little addition to my Interesting Input plus Production Prompts collection

Ms Sandy presents: That's Good! That's Bad! by Margery Cuyler

The follow-up writing prompt is here: docs, pub

That’s Good! That’s Bad! Write your own story

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Oh, that’s__________.  No, that’s  __________!

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Oh, that’s__________.  No, that’s  __________!

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Oh, that’s__________.  No, that’s  __________!

Interesting Input plus Production Prompts

(TESOL Materials--Comprehensible Input, Reading, Writing, Topic Lessons, Time Killers and Time Fillers)

Google: docs, pub

Input	Productive Activity
Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day Notes: The pre and post vocabulary slides are one of my less inspired ideas.  Probably best to skip the vocabulary and jump right to the beginning of the story.  This is true of the subsequent slideshows as well.	Students write about their own bad day Notes: This can be a real bad day or an imaginary bad day, but it’s best if the tone is humorous rather than sad.  Discourage students from writing about something tragic like the death of a family member.
Fortunately by Remy Charlip	Write a story in the same style
Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo	Write a story in the same style
That's Good! That's Bad by Margery Cuyler	Write a story in the same style
Fox in Socks	Running Dictation. Or, alternatively, give students the transcript and have them try to read it aloud to a partner as fast as possible.
Where the Wild Things Are	Make Your Own Wild Thing
Rosie’s Walk	Write Your Own Story and Draw Picture
Choose any picture book from this folder.  Read half of the story, but don’t read the ending.	Students write their own endings. Notes: This can theoretically work with any story, but in the past I’ve had good results using The Cat in the Hat (stop at slide 381), and The Gruffalo (stop at slide 162)
Choose any comic book from this folder.  Read part of the story, but don’t read the ending.	Students draw and write and their own endings on comic book paper. Notes: This can work with any story, but in particular suggest doing Dracula up to the end of part 1, or The Time Machine up to the end of part 1--or part 2, Treasure Island up to the end of part 1, Or A Cool Deal up to slide 95
Choose any fairy tale from this folder. Have the students read the first half of the story, but don’t read the ending.	Students write their own endings.
The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man  (Alternatives--Fractured Fairy Tales or The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig)	Students write their own subversion of a fairy tale.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (online here or here). Note: This can be copied onto a word document and printed--example HERE (select 4 pages per sheet when printing).  Or it can be read online.  It’s not necessary to read the whole thing.  Some of it will give the flavor.	Discuss the similarities and differences with Vietnamese schools. Then students write the Vietnamese version of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”.  (They can also do this as a comic book).
The Monkey’s Paw	Students write a sequel in which a new owner acquires the Monkey’s Paw.
Reader's Theater Scripts	Students are assigned parts, and in their groups, read it aloud or act out their part.
Using Film Clips to Practice Pronunciation--rules 1. clip--script 2. clip--script 3. clip--script	Students practice pronunciation with the script.  Possibly students find clips of their own favorite movies online, and practice imitating the pronunciation of those clips
Jokes	Students come up with their own jokes, then the classmates try to guess the punchline
General Knowledge Quiz (Hard, Easy) Notes: Draw Grid on Whiteboard, but don’t show students the questions. Students choose a box on the grid, and then hear the question. Hurricane—the team loses all their points Rocket—team has the option of destroying all the points of one of the other teams Arrow—team has the option of swapping score totals with another team.	Students make their own general knowledge quiz for the other teams

Ideas for Feedback on the Writing:

• Students stand up in front of the class and read their stories aloud

• The teacher collects the stories, and the teacher reads them out

• Post the stories up around the classroom, and do a gallery walk.  Students then go back to their tables and vote on the best story.

In my experience, the success of each method of feedback varies depending on the character of the class.  I’ve had some classes where students had a lot of laughs standing up and reading their stories to the class, and some classes where students reacted with horror to the idea of being asked to read their stories to the class.  Use your own judgment.

I don’t give a lot of grammar feedback on the stories, because I view them as primarily a fluency and creativity exercise.  But I collect them after the class finishes, and try to write a short little personalized message to each student to show them I had read and appreciated the story.  (e.g. “Excellent story Ha.  This made me laugh.  I liked the part where…”).

I may also take a couple sentences from each story (one correct and one incorrect from each student), put them on a word document, and do a grammar auction with them in the subsequent class.  But I wouldn’t do any more grammar correction than that. 

Notes:  This document is a collection of materials that consist of one piece of input and a corresponding production prompt.  

This is a continuation of my ongoing effort to make studying English more interesting by getting away from the textbook and giving students enjoyable input.  In the past, I've done this by doing a little bit of a movie each lesson (see my movie worksheets) or doing part of an ongoing story each lesson (see for example Bone or Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH).  

However, recently, I've been moving away from an ongoing story or movie for a couple of reasons:

1) Previously I had been teaching 8-12 year olds, and they were quite happy to do many ongoing movies or storybooks, but now I'm teaching primarily teenagers, and I've discovered that teenagers have more niche interests, and it's difficult to find a movie or story that everyone likes.

2) Some of my classes now I only see once a week, and therefore it is difficult to keep the ongoing story fresh in their memory between classes.

So, I've switched to using input that is self-contained.  i.e. Instead of a long story that stretches several lessons, we do a shorter story that is only one lesson.  

And then all of these inputs are combined with a production activity.

The Google Doc was put together for the purpose of sharing these activities with my colleagues, and thus doesn't contain any links back to this blog.  But all of these activities have been linked before on this blog.  The relevant links are as follows:

* Story Time Picture Book Index

* Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz

* Fortunately by Remy Charlip and Writing Prompt

* Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

* Fox and Socks with Running Dictation

* Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo: Storytime and Writing Prompt

* The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

* The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler

* Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales: Write Your Own Ending

* Lesson on Jokes and Best Jokes

* General Knowledge Quiz

* Gallery Walk: Feedback Activity for Writing

* Grammar Auction: For Grammar Lessons and for Writing

* That's Good! That's Bad! by Margery Cuyler and David Catrow: Storytime and Writing Prompt

* The Monkey's Paw: Reading and Writing Prompt

* The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man: Write Your Own Twisted Fairy Tale

* Reader's Theater Scripts and Teacher's Guides

* Using TV and Movie Clips to Teach Pronunciation

* Form for Feedback on Writing

* Students draw and write and their own endings on comic book paper

* Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Students Write Their Own Version