When in Doubt, Make a Snowball

I’ve never been in charge of a snowball-style writing activity. I’ve only participated in such activities as a student. But when the opportunity arose to use one for a quick little vocab review, I couldn’t resist the temptation.

Normally for a snowball writing activity, every student would begin to draft a story and after approximately five or so minutes, each student crumples up the paper and throws it in the center of the room.

Photo of me with a snowman I built when I was in
the second grade.

Another student picks up the paper, reads what was started, and writes where the other writer left off. After five or so minutes, this student crumples up the paper and throws it in the center of the room.

Another student picks up the paper…

You get the idea. It’s cyclical, silly, and fun.

So I decided to modify this activity as a different way for my freshmen to review for their vocab test. To do this, I had each table split up a piece of paper into four or five parts – depending on how many people were at the table.

I then went around person to person, instructing them to write a specific word from their vocab list for the week, or to write the definition for a word from the list. Once I exhausted all the words and the definitions, I began to repeat.

After everyone had something written, I had my students throw the papers in the center of the room. Everyone got up, took one, and then had to find the person that matched either their word or their definition.

Once everyone had a partner, I had them repeat this activity again.

For the most part, the review game worked. The only thing that didn’t work, was that it was clear that not all my students have been studying, as some of them were unable to provide definitions, which hindered the review for everyone else.

It was a nice change of pace for our vocab review, since my students actually had fun reviewing their words, which was a dramatic change from the usual groans and sighs I hear in response to "Okay, time to review our vocab!"

Today, we had a read around in each of my Creative Writing classes, and both of my classes finished early. As a result, I decided to give the traditional snowball writing activity a try. 

Each student took out a piece of paper and began writing for five minutes. When I said that time was up, I had my students pick up their pen/pencil wherever they left off -- even if they were in the middle of a sentence. I asked them to then crumple up the paper, and had them throw the papers in the center of the room. 

Every student picked a new piece of paper out of the center, and began writing where the other writer left off for about five minutes. Then, they crumpled up the paper again, threw it in the center of the room, and grabbed a new one. When they returned to their tables, they read what was started, and then finished the piece.

After about five minutes, I had them pass the paper to another student at their table so they could read the finished product. What resulted: a stack of incredibly imaginative stories. 

Needless to say, snowball activities are definitely something I will do again...