Flowers on the Ground – a creative picture prompt with a storytelling worksheet

Hi everyone! Lately I’ve been experimenting with new ways to use picture prompts in class and turn them into longer, full-blown lesson plans. Along with the prompt above, I’ve created a worksheet which you can download, print, and hand out to your students. (If you happen to try it out, please let me know how it goes. That would help me figure out whether to make more like it in the future.)

This creative prompt can be used to practice both speaking and writing skills, and it gives students the chance to work both on a team and individually. Your class is going to use a simple picture to build vocabulary, brainstorm ideas, create a character and finally, write a full-blown story.

As usual, my focus is on teaching ESL, but I think that English (ELA) and Creative Writing teachers might be able to use this prompt, as well.

Lesson Plan Ideas:

1. Divide your class into small groups (3 0r 4 students per group works well).
2. Display the picture on the projector, and/or hand out copies of this worksheet:
   flowers on the ground worksheet
3. Discuss the task with the students. Explain that students need to brainstorm a list of possible reasons why the flowers ended up on the ground. I would recommend giving a couple of reasons of your own as examples (A girl got angry at her boyfriend and threw his gift on the floor. / A clumsy man accidentally dropped them as he was opening a door…)
4. Give groups time to come up with a list. While students are working, you can help students with difficult vocabulary and list new words on the board.
5. Ask groups to share back two of their favorite reasons with the rest of the class.
6. Ask students to choose one of the ideas on their lists and turn it into a story. This can be done independently if you want your students to practice writing, or as a team, if you’d like to put more emphasis on speaking and teamwork. Again, you can use the worksheet to give your students some guidelines. If you don’t have access to a printer, you can write the following questions on the board:
   a- Who dropped the flowers?
   b- What happened in his/her life before he dropped the flowers?
   c- How was he/she feeling?
   d- What caused the flowers to drop?
   e- What happened after? How did his/her feelings change?
7. Students share their work. I would recommend sharing in small groups if students wrote their stories independently, and sharing as a whole class if they wrote their stories in groups. It’s fun for students to see how many possible crazy stories came out of the same simple picture.

Comments

If you liked this activity, or if you have any questions about it, please take a moment to leave your comments in the box at the bottom of the page! I’m still new to blogging, so your feedback is super-helpful to me!