Collaborative Writing Exercises

Sometimes the easiest and most comfortable way for students to begin writing is by working together.
Collaborative writing can break down reserve and fear and can foster trust. Collaborative writing exercises
also allow you to assess your students comfort level with writing and risk-taking in learning.
Exercise: Free Association
After modeling and then completing the exercise with partners, the exercise works best with groups of four to
eight students.
1. Begin by explaining free association. For example, I give you a word, and you give me a word in
response.
2. Demonstrate the process with a student. You and the student each come up with ten words to which
the other person must respond. Keep a list of the twenty words that you and the student say.
3. Pair up students and have them free-associate ten words to make up a list of twenty words.
4. Students then write poems, paragraphs, or stories based on their lists.
Exercise: Word or Sentence Layering
1. Students sit in a circle so that the words can flow quickly.
2. Explain that each person will be responsible for adding one word or sentence to the story,
spontaneously saying the first thing that comes into his or her mind, as in a free association.
3. The teacher or a selected student records the story as the group creates it.
4. One student begins by saying one word or a sentence, and each student adds another word or
sentence.
5. The group decides when the story will end, but it should go on for a couple of pages and have a natural
story rhythm.
6. The recorder or a selected student reads the story back to the group.
Exercise: Write to Words and Drawings
1. Divide the class into groups of eight to ten students, with each group seated in a circle.
2. Ask students to write about the goofiest thing theyve seen recently or to write about what annoys
them.
3. After everyone has written for two minutes, ask students to pass their papers to the person on their
left.
4. Students then draw a picture based on what they read; after two minutes, they pass the papers to
their left, hiding the written portion. The students look at the drawings theyve received and write
about the pictures for two minutes.
5. Repeat this process until each sheet returns to its original writer.
6. Ask student to read the assembled stories, showing the illustrations.
Exercise: Found Poems
This exercise helps to demonstrate the elasticity of meaning, how poems can emerge from random sources,
and how poems already exist in the world.
1. Distribute newspapers, magazines, or books and ask students to look through them.
2. Have students call out phrases, words, or sentences from the newspapers, magazines, or books.
3. The teacher or a student writes these words on the whiteboard and reads them back as a poem.
4. After modeling a group found poem, have students try writing their own found poems, following these
instructions: Poem Instructions
Carefully re-read the prose text you have chosen, and look for 50100 words that stand out in the
prose passage.

On a separate sheet of paper, make a list of the details, words and phrases you underlined, keeping
them in the order that you found them.
Double space between lines so that the lines are easy to work with. Feel free to add others that you
notice as you go through the prose piece again.
Look back over your list and cut out everything that is dull, or unnecessary, or that just doesnt seem
right for the poem you wish to write. Try to cut your original list in half.
As you look over the shortened list, think about the tone that the details convey.
Make any minor changes necessary to create your poem. You can change punctuation and make little
changes to the words to make them fit together, such as change the tenses, possessives, plurals, and
capitalizations.
When youre close to an edited down version, if you absolutely need to add a word or two to make the
poem flow more smoothly, to make sense, to make a point, you may add up to two words of your own.
Thats two (2) and only two!
Read back over your edited draft one more time and make any deletions or minor changes.
Check the words and choose a title. Please be creative and find a title that isnt Found Poem.
Copy the words and phrases into final copy format. Space or arrange the words so that theyre poemlike. Pay attention to line breaks, layout, and other elements that will emphasize important words or
significant ideas in the poem.
o Read aloud as you arrange the words! Test the possible line breaks by pausing slightly. If it
sounds good, its probably right.
o Arrange the words so that they make a rhythm you like. You can space words out so that they
are all alone or allruntogether.
o You can also put key words on lines by themselves.
o You can shape the entire poem so that its wide or tall or shaped like an object.
o Emphasize words by playing with boldface and italics, different sizes of letters, and so forth.
At the bottom of the poem, tell where the words in the poem came from.

Exercise: The Word Deck

1. Ask students to write down three words for each of various categories that you create. For example,
foreign places, textures, sounds, colors, foods, etc.
2. Students choose their ten favorite words and write each word on a three-by-five index card. Place the
cards together in a word deck.
3. Distribute five cards to each student, and ask students to write a ten-line poem or ten-sentence
paragraph incorporating their five words.
Exercise: Write from Five Words
1. Ask students to write down three words across the top of a blank piece of paper: the words must be a
noun, a verb, and an adjective.
2. Then ask students to add two more words that dont seem to have any connection to the other three
words.
3. Ask students to pass their papers to the person on their right and write a poem using the five words
they receive. The students should also title their poems with words they didnt use in the text.
4. If theres time, they can repeat the process by passing the words to their left.
5. In another variation of this exercise, you choose a word as the title for a short poem. Each student
writes a five-line poem with this title. When they are finished, ask students to pass their poems to the
right. Now ask each student to choose one word from the poem he or she has received to use as the
title for a new five-line poem. Continue until the original poems have made their way around the
circle.