Students often start writing a narrative before planning where it is going, This activity encourages them to ‘see’ the entire sequence of events before starting writing.
See a whole story before writing it – the supermarket thief

Ask students to shut their eyes, and relax. Give the following, or similar prompts, pause between prompts:

  • Imagine a busy supermarket...

  • What can you see?

  • What can you hear?

  • How do you feel?

  • What are you buying? Why?

  • You see a person who makes you suspicious...

  • What does this person look like?

  • What are they doing that is suspicious?

  • They take some items form a shelf and hide them in their coat...

  • What are the items?

  • How do they take them?

  • How do you feel?

  • What do you do now?

  • How do you feel at the end?

Students can tell each other about what they imagined. They can go on to write their story. This technique is useful for narrative or descriptive writing.

It is not always necessary for writing to take place for a pre-writing activity to be useful.

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