An Engaging Valentine’s Activity for Secondary Students

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and what better way to celebrate than with a creative and engaging activity that your students will love? If you previously bought any of my resources or if you are on my email list, you know I love using journals in my classroom.  They are a great tool for sparking discussions, encouraging thoughtful reflections, and diving deep into various topics.

 

Not all students are crazy about writing journals (full transparency), BUT I’ve never had a student complain about journal swap days.  I use them sparingly so they feel “special,” but I’ve learned that they are fantastic to use on days before a school break or on days when you have an assembly, half day or any other disrupted and/or shortened schedule day.  Students spend most of the time during the class period scribbling furiously, many while smiling or giggling, and they LOVE sharing out these collaborative stories!

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I decided to do something *slightly* different than my usual journal swap.  Thus, this Valentine's Story Swap resource was born! It’s a "sweet" twist on the journal swap *married with* the traditional Valentine card exchange designed with secondary students in mind.  Each of the 10 uniquely designed pages has a story starter based on a different Conversation Heart message. The activity blends fun, movement, and collaboration while nurturing creativity and building writing stamina.

 

Here’s how it Works

In this activity, each student will begin his or her story on the handout with one of the provided story starter prompts.  You will likely have duplicate story starters, but that doesn't matter because each story will be totally unique to the students who are writing it! Then, each student will write from 1-3 minutes (or whatever time frame you choose) and then you will call out “Swap!” Every student should stop in mid-sentence and get up and find another student with whom to exchange papers.  Give them a short time (maybe 30 seconds to do this).  Then, students return to their seats where they read what is there and continue the story.  If students can’t handle physically getting out of their seats, you can assign small groups instead.  When each story gets back to its original owner, that will be the last swap, and the student who started the story will read what’s there and finish the story. That’s it!!

 

A bonus with this activity is that you can control its length.  Have only 20 minutes? Make shorter and fewer writing periods.  Need it longer? Add longer writing periods and more writing sessions.  Spice up this activity by varying the writing session lengths.   For example, it’s fun to give only about a minute or so in some rounds so that students only get a chance to add a sentence or a few words.  This keeps them on their toes! Just keep in mind that they’ll need to read what’s there first, and then write. 

 

Tips for this Activity

I’ve done story swap activities hundreds of times in one form or another and have learned a few things along the way.  Here are my best tips:

 

1.   Be sure to have students write their names on their original stories so that the story goes back to the original owner at the end.

2.   Depending on the group you have, you may want to instruct students to write their names beside the portion they write.  You can monitor this by walking around during the writing sessions to be sure they’ve done so.

3.   Advise students before beginning that they must exchange stories with a different person every time.  You won’t be able to police every student with every exchange, but I’m willing to bet that you know which ones you need to watch.  😊

4.   Instruct students that what they write should be school appropriate.  Yes, you really need to say this!

5.    Be sure to share the stories! This is the one time that EVERYONE wants to share.  It’s so fun to hear all of the outlandish stories and compare and contrast how stories that start from the same prompt can be so different!

 

If you haven’t ever done a story swap activity, you should! It's a fun, creative and collaborative activity that will have your students begging to do it again. 

 

If you’d like to have a Valentine's Story Swap activity that is ready-to-print-and-go, click here or on the image below.

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