• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Free French Resources
  • Newsletter
  • Speaking Activities
  • Beginning French
  • Intermediate/Advanced
  • Unit Bundles
  • Shop
  • Nav Widget Area

    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest

Mme R's French Resources

March 1, 2021

3 fun ways to teach writing in French class

ShareTweetGooglePinterestMail

teaching-writing-french

Do you teach writing in French class? Teaching writing has always been one of my favorite activities. Not all students love to write, but there are some easy ways to make it a lot more fun! With these super-low-prep activities, you can help your students get the necessary practice to become better French writers while making it much more engaging for all students.

Here are some fun and easy activities to teach writing

in French class.

 

1. Create a comic strip.

Not all kids will love to write a story, so how about making it something they will love? You can always give the option to write a traditional story or a comic strip. My son absolutely HATES to write paragraphs, but if he is given the option to write a comic strip, he’ll gladly do a writing assignment.

You can create the page for the comic strip by making a page with as many boxes as you want students to complete. Short on time? Just have them draw their own. 🙂

Give them a topic that corresponds to the unit you are working on and have them write a short story or even use the comic strip to write a short dialogue.

This can be as formal or informal as you want. A lot of times, I’ll do activities like this as a follow-up reader response to a novel we are reading.

 

2. Use this fun sentence extender practice to have a sentence-length challenge.

Not all writing activities have to be formal essays. This is a really simple activity that I have done with students to help them write longer sentences. I don’t know about you, but reading a lot of short sentences really bugs me. Here’s what I do:

Show students a picture. It can be anything, really, but do stick with something that students will have the vocabulary to discuss. For example, for beginners learning -er verbs, you you could show something like this:French-writing-activity

Write the question words on the board to prompt students to add more detail:

  • Qui ?

  • Quoi ?

  • Quand ?

  • OĂą ?

  • Pourquoi ?

  • Comment ?

Then you’d model how to make it longer. Start with the subject and verb. Rewrite the sentence and a detail by answering one of the question words. Then rewrite the new sentence adding another detail. You can keep adding to it with new details.

Once you’ve modeled this to students, have them work in partners to try and create long sentences. You can even make it a competition with a little prize for the longest sentence.

Obviously, they wouldn’t always add all these details, but the point is to practice writing with more detail. In this case, more is better.

 

3.  Use a snowball writing activity.

This was always my students’ favorite when I taught advanced classes and older French immersion class.

1. Start with a writing prompt. You can ask a question of the day, give them a silly story starter, or have them tell a funny story with a picture you find online. If you want to mix it up, assign a different question to each table.

Click here to grab some free story starters for your intermediate and advanced classes!

2. Give students a few minutes to write. I usually do 3 minutes, but that’s just the time that seemed to work the best for us. You can adjust it based on your students.

3. After they’ve written for the chosen time limit, have them ball up their papers and toss them up in the air. Then each student jumps up, grabs a “snowball” and reads what was written.

4. Give the class another 3 minutes or so to continue the story, then ball them back up and toss them again. We do this two or three times . When you are ready to end the story, have the final person write an ending.

Make sure you vary your types of activities, and be sure not to overwhelm students (and yourself) with too many writing projects. It should be fun!

Learn how I formally assess and grade writing here. 

Filed Under: Middle and high school teaching, Teaching tips, Writing Ashley Leave a Comment

Reader Interactions

My 3 favorite resources for teaching imparfait
5 tips for Target Language Teaching

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy * for Click to select the duration you give consent until.

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Get Social!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
French-speaking-activities
French paperless task cards
French-vocabulary-grammar-units
French reading comprehension activities
French vocabulary and verb worksheets
Games for French class

Footer

Still Looking for Something?

Let’s Get Social

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Home
  • Free French Resources
  • Beginning French
  • Intermediate/Advanced
  • Speaking Activities
  • Unit Bundles
  • Privacy Policy
  • Shop

© 2015 Mme R's French Resources · Customised By: Laine Sutherland Designs

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. You can view our privacy policy here. Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

SAVE & ACCEPT