Teachers can select teaching and learning activities that can be accessed in most homes and/or as part of a student's everyday home life. The everyday lives of students will differ from school to school, and teachers are best placed to choose teaching and learning activities that will suit their students and their home circumstances.
- Teachers and students can use television or streaming services to engage with text (fiction through films or series; non-fiction through news, narrative non-fiction and documentaries). Students can recount the stories they watch, write reviews, engage with persuasive language and techniques, and develop their creativity through imaginative tasks (for example, writing an alternative ending to a film).
- Students can use podcasts or audio books to engage with aural texts and to create responses to these texts either through the same form (recording their responses) or using some other kind of response.
- Students can use chalk on a concrete surface (or use pencils on paper) to create stories in sequenced images. They can document their work through photography, possibly using mobile phones, and upload or text those images with captions to further illustrate their storytelling. This work can illustrate many levels of understanding, from sequencing through to point of view and voice.
- Students can prepare food or a meal (or a banquet!) for a character from a text to illustrate their knowledge of the text and their understanding of character. They can document this work through recipes, descriptions of table settings, photography and/or film.
- Students can sequence their day through a set of descriptive passages, a set of drawings or images, or a podcast in which they describe the order of their daily activities.
- Students can design book covers or posters to illustrate some element or event from a text. They can also design frontispieces for one or a series of chapters of a text.
- Students can create 'flash fiction' (see
The Guardian's 'Stories in your pocket: how to write flash fiction') in response to what they have read or viewed.
- Students can create
six-word short stories to retell either a known story or to tell a new story.
- Students can condense a text into a storybook for a younger audience and provide illustrations for their retelling.
- Students can record themselves reading (using a mobile phone or other device) and send the recording to their teacher. Whole classes can co-create an audio book by reading and exchanging short parts of the text or chapters. (This work could be shared with other members of the students' community, of course, such as extended family members.)
- Students can co-create a system to borrow and exchange text in their local communities, if online access is unavailable or to maintain local connections.
- Students can set up 'little libraries' outside their home by putting books, magazines or any text in a box or similar and creating a sign inviting others to take and give as needed.
- Students could organise book or DVD drops to other students' homes and then share their experiences of engaging with these texts.
- Students could read to one another over the phone or over online apps such as Whatsapp or Skype. They could also read with and to family members or friends.
- Students can engage with written forms like letter writing, or other reflective styles such as diaries.
- Teachers can mail out projects that invite students to design projects like a treasure hunt or a quiz. Their work can then be shared and used by other students to engage in learning.
- Students can develop 'penpal' relationships with other students (or, indeed, other individuals) as part of a writing program, either via email or through the mail. This can be traditional letter writing or students can co-create a production, such as a story, play or script.
- Students can memorise speeches from plays and design a performance they can perform and film or record.
- Students can write speeches for characters from set texts (or from texts they are engaging with for pleasure) to demonstrate knowledge of the text and understanding of character. They could submit these speeches in writing or they could record their speech.
- Student can narrate a walk around their home or their local area by recording themselves on a mobile phone. They can support this work with a labelled map of the space they have narrated. If the walk is around a local area, this recording can be shared with other students who may choose to listen to the recording while taking the same walk.