Are you looking for ways to make writing and storytelling fun for students? Use the Random Emoji Power Paragraph to introduce students to the power of writing to tell a story. Laugh your way to writing with engaging Emojis! Dial an Emoji and write a sentence. Add 3 more and now you have a story! Instant feedback and sharing stories engages and motivates students!
You will need the following:
- The EduProtocols Random Emoji Generator.
- A quiz program: We suggest Socrative for this EduProtocol.
- Start up a Socrative Short Answer quiz.
- Once the students are logged in, the fun begins. Socrative Short Answer quizzes literally take 5-10 seconds to set up. You may use the Socrative Short Answer quizzes for all kinds of one sentence, open ended assignments.
- To pursue a singular idea in a paragraph
- To build fluidity in students' ability to think and respond
- To practice and develop writing skills
- Scaffolding is built right in.
- For our advanced students, it challenges them to create within defined parameters.
- For ELLs and SPED students, it provides just enough scaffolding for success.
- Have fun with this one--it might be a little silly, and that is ok!
Prepare for the Activity
Littles are loving this protocol! Shorten the number of sentences to fit their growing ability and add more as students become fluent in writing. When writing just one or two sentences, consider using the question feature in Google Classroom. This feature allows them to see their peers' writing. Instead of voting, just share or allow time to read some of their peers' work. If your students are not writing independently yet, structure this protocol as a class-wide shared writing activity. For pre-and early-writers, use the Random Emoji Generator in a verbal-only format to give them practice pursuing a singular idea.
- Be prepared to project the Random Emoji Generator to the whole class. Create an open-ended question in a quiz program such as Socrative (Socrative allows for a voting feature).
- Explain the concept of pursuing an idea. Staying on topic is what defines a paragraph. If you pursue a new idea, it's time for a new paragraph. And for this activity, we are only writing one paragraph. Click the Start Over button on the Random Emoji page until the class yells "yes" to pick the first emoji. This begins the game. Give the students about a minute or two to get the first sentence typed out. Launch a one-question, short answer quiz in Socrative. Students write a sentence based on the emoji in the Socrative answer field of their question.
- Then hit the And Then button. Another random emoji appears. We repeat this until each student has five sentences typed. When they have five sentences, they hit submit (not sooner!). When everyone is done, select Start Vote in Socrative, and the students can read everyone's paragraph. It's great for them to immediately admire one another's work. And the teacher can give pointers immediately, because we will usually do one more paragraph right away. The Start Vote option in Socrative is magical because all the students see all the work immediately--no "collecting" or handing in.
- The Random Emoji Power Paragraph can have endless permutation, making it effective for most any grade level. Once kids can snap off five to six sentences on point (should take about eight reps), the teacher can add twists like tense, point of view, literary devices, appositives and so on. The teacher can scaffold student writing in myriad ways and the combination of random emoji and fast feedback via Socrative is a total win for kids and teachers.
- This is a training tool, so use it until students are adroit at navigating flexible paragraph writing.
- Use in spurts to build adeptness in students.
- Scaffold with standards to give depth and rigor to writing practice.
Adapting for Littles
Littles are loving this protocol! Shorten the number of sentences to fit their growing ability and add more as students become fluent in writing. When writing just one or two sentences, consider using the question feature in Google Classroom. This feature allows them to see their peers' writing. Instead of voting, just share or allow time to read some of their peers' work. If your students are not writing independently yet, structure this protocol as a class-wide shared writing activity. For pre-and early-writers, use the Random Emoji Generator in a verbal-only format to give them practice pursuing a singular idea.
