Word Processing activities

 (from Bell School, Norwich)

Ten activities for the word Processor

 Index - Ten ideas for teachers

 1.      Personal information - A biography

2.      A Running Dictation

3.      One story from three - A journey

4.      A boring story

5.      The beginning of a story

6.      Punctuation

7.      Arranging paragraphs and working with linking words

8.      Changing the protagonist in a story

9.      The Parisian – Repetition and text development

10. Story expansion – Percy’s Cat

Activity 1

 Personal information - A biography

In this activity the student is required to change the text so that it is about them.

 A biography

My full name’s Paul Thomas Hullock.  I am 40 years old and I was born in Northern Ireland, but brought up mostly in England.  I have two sisters who are both older than me.  One is a lawyer and the other a gardener.  My father spent most of his working life as a fireman and my mother is a retired civil servant.  Unfortunately, my father died a few a years ago.  Both my parents originally came from the North East of England.

I live in Norwich with my darling wife, my beautiful daughter Katie, who will be four in April, and a rather fat seventeen year old cat called Lucy.  I’m a teacher and have been working here at the Bell School for about eleven years now.  Before that I worked for a school in London and before that I worked in Greece.  The most unusual job I have ever had was a summer job when I was a student. I was a rat catcher!

In my free time I like to swim whenever I can and in the summer I love playing cricket.  I also like to watch films and read.  At the moment I’m reading a lot of American crime fiction, having been converted to it by a friend.

Activity 2

 A Running Dictation

In this activity the students do a paired running dictation. This example has

five sentences and is taken from Grammar Dictation by Ruth Wajynrb / OUP

0-19-437004-6.  However, the length of the dictation can vary depending on

the source for the dictation.

The dictation - Chocomania

 1.

 2.

 3.

 4.

 5.

 The dictation – answer

 1. If you did a random check among your friends you might discover an amazing thing.

 2. The addiction that affects most people is neither alcohol nor nicotine.

 3. It’s chocolate.

 4. Most people can’t resist soft, sweet, fresh chocolate and they eat it quite regularly.

 5. Apart from the effect on your pocket and your waistline, the habit is neither harmful nor illegal and most chocolate addicts get away happily with at least one ‘fix’ a day. [1]

 Activity 3

 One story from many - A journey

In this activity students are requires to combine elements such as sentences or individual words from different separate paragraphs in order to form a single, logical and coherent text.  The separate paragraphs should be given to the students either on their PCs or as a handout. The activity is co-operative and requires the learners to share their information orally and appoint a secretary to type the correct version.

Activity 4

 A boring story

In this activity the students see the following text which requires adjectives to be added to make the story interesting.

 Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house in a town .  He wasn’t very  .  he felt rather and so he decided to go for a walk in the forest .  Soon the weather became and he felt quite .  He was very when he suddenly heard a noise and he turned round to see a girl from his school .  she was very and had eyes and hair.

Activity 5

 The beginning of a story

 In this activity the students are required to continue the story below.  However, after two or three minutes the teacher asks the students to move to the PC to their left and continue the story.  The process is repeated until the students return to their original PC or alternatively the teacher can conclude the activity by signaling that there is only 5 minutes left to conclude their story.

 It was a cold dark night.  Tom and Mary had been driving to the castle for about five hours.  The wind was howling and in the distance they could hear the cry of wolves in the forest.  Suddenly the car came to a stop.  The engine had cut out .

Activity 6

Punctuation

In this activity the students are required to punctuate the following text.

dear mr brown im writing to you to let you know that ill be away from school until next Monday im sorry I couldnt let you know in person but your secretary told me you were busy and I didnt want to disturb you the reason for my absence is that my uncle from the united states is paying us an unexpected visit and as am the only one in the family who speaks english im going to look after him if I had known sooner I would have told you but as I said the visit is unexpected yours sincerely peter magnusson

Activity 7

 Arranging paragraphs and working with linking words

 Study this report.

It contains:

a)        One main title

b)        Four sub-titles / main sections

c)         The section entitled: ‘Results and Analysis’ is divided into three paragraphs.

 Below you can read the report but none of the sections have been divided up. Read the report and decide where the titles, sections and paragraphs are. Use the mouse to divide the text up.

 A Survey into the culinary tastes of the people of Norwich. Introduction.

Having now been in the UK for nearly two months, our group was curious to find out more about British attitudes to food and so we decided to ask members of public in Norwich some questions relating to this topic. This report is divided into a number of sections and each section relates to each question asked. Before analysing the questions, we will firstly give a brief overview of our survey. Description of the Investigation.  For this survey we created a questionnaire and went into the streets of Norwich to interview eight respondents. The questionnaire comprised eight questions and a copy of the full questionnaire is attached in Appendix One. Results and Analysis. Firstly, we questioned people about what they kind of food they liked and also their reasons. We gave the interviewees a list of different foods and asked them to say which they preferred. Nearly all of the people surveyed, approximately 75%, said that they did not like fish’n’chips, saying that it was rather unhealthy. On the contrary, three out of every four people interviewed said they liked salad with tomatoes and olive oil. This, we found, rather surprising as we had been led to believe the fish’n’chips was one of the Britain’s traditionally foods. The response may be due to the fact that British people, like people all over the world, are becoming more health conscious. On the other hand, another reason may be that European tastes are influencing the British diet and so fish’n’chips is becoming less popular. There was one small group, those over sixty years old, who said that they liked fish’n’chips. This is probably because they were brought up during a time when such food was very popular. It is rather difficult for the habits of older people to change. Our second question related to the times of day when people eat. As far as breakfast is concerned, most eat between seven and eight in the morning. This is similar to breakfast time in our own countries. It probably reflects the fact that we follow similar patterns in our working days. Conclusion. In conclusion there seems to be a trend towards British eating habits becoming more multi-national. People eat out more and enjoy different kinds of food from all over the world. In addition they are becoming more aware of their own diets. This is probably mirrored in most populations the developed world.

Now look at the words from the text above. Decide into which of the following section they should go. Type them in / copy and paste them in. 

 Now look at the groups of words and expression below. Drag them into the correct box above:

 On the other hand,...

However, ...

...whereas ...

...compared with X who thought that ...

 We firstly ...

Firstly we

Our second question related to ...

The third question was concerned with ...

As far as breakfast is concerned ...

 approximately sixty per cent

about two thirds

two out of every three people interviewed

The majority

Most

about ...

We felt this was rather ...

In our opinion, we thought that this was ...

moreover

furthermore

To sum up

To summarise

One reason for this may be

This may be due to the fact that

Another reason may be ...

This is probably because ...

It probably reflects the fact that ...

... there seems to be a trend ...

there appears to be a tendency

Activity 8

 Changing the protagonist in a story

In this activity the students have to change the protagonist in the story from a woman to a man and make all the  consequent changes.

Instructions:

 Change the beginning of this story to, ‘All day long, John had been looking forward to his date ....’ and make other changes you think necessary. Then finish the story.

 JANE’S HOT DATE

 All day long, Jane had been looking forward to her date with James. She had met him for the first time only a couple of weeks ago but already she was sure he was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. He was tall and dark, with wide shoulders and a lock of hair that flopped over one eye, and his voice was deep and sexy. He seemed really interested in everything she had to say. She could already imagine walking down the aisle with him as the organ played, ‘Here comes the bride ...’

 At lunchtime she left the office and dashed out to the shops where she bought a new blouse, a black dress and a pair of shoes. She left the office at five and waited impatiently for the bus to take her home. There she had a long, luxurious bath and then carefully put on her makeup and new clothes. She felt really satisfied with the way she looked.

 James had arranged to meet her in a West End pub, where they would have a drink before going on to a restaurant. Jane walked into the pub and could feel every man’s eyes on her. Every man except James. She must be early. Or maybe he’d been delayed. She ordered an orange juice and sat in a corner near the door. Time passed and her heart sank. She went to find a phone and dialled his number but only got a message, ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised ...’

‘Swine’ she muttered and ....

Activity 9

 The Parisian – Repetition and text development

 Another text based activity that requires the learner to make changes to the text to avoid unnecessary repetition (for instance using relative clauses).

 Below is an outline of a story. Can you remove the repetition and make it easier to read?

 A Parisian walked into a house at the village in 1964. Inside the house the Parisian began to feel unhappy and so the Parisian went to find a local bar to get a glass of wine. The Parisian bought a glass of wine. The wine tasted sweet. At the local bar the Parisian found a very nice local woman. The local woman was also drinking a glass of wine. The Parisian thought: “ I would like to talk to that local woman”, so the Parisian talked to the local woman. After a while the Parisian began to talk to the local woman, the Parisian started to feel happy. The Parisian decided to ask the local woman on a date. The local woman turned down the Parisian. The Parisian went back to the house in the village. The Parisian felt unhappy.

Activity 10

Story expansion – Percy’s Cat

A creative writing activity where students develop a story from given sentences and prompts.

 Instructions:  Complete this story by following the instructions.

Percy’s cat

 Once upon a time there was a man called Percy who had a pet cat.

 (Describe the cat)

For a long time, the cat had been his best friend

 (Why did he like the cat so much? What sort of things did they do together?)

But then one day all this changed.

 (Why did he begin to hate his cat?)

So Percy decided to kill his cat.

 (How did he do it?)

Then he got rid of the body

 (How?)

But the following night ....

 (Finish the story)