Everyone writes, nobody worries whether it is any good. One line each, folded out of sight and passed on, and at the end the class reads out six stories that make no sense at all. Print the strips and model it on the board.
Consequences is the old fold-and-pass story game. Each child writes one line on a strip of paper, folds it over so nobody can see what they wrote, and passes it on. When the strips are unfolded and read aloud, the stories are nonsense — which is the point.
Because every child writes, and none of them is worrying about whether it is any good. A child who will not write a paragraph will write one line, and the line has a shape given to them — a name, a place, what they said. By the end everyone has written six sentences without noticing.
Put the prompts on the board in order and read each one out. Everyone writes their line, folds the strip over and passes it left. Six prompts takes about fifteen minutes including the reading out, and the reading out is not optional — it is the reward for the writing.
Sentence structure, mostly by stealth: each prompt fixes what kind of thing has to go in that line, so children practise writing a person, a place, speech and a consequence in turn. It is also one of the few writing tasks where getting the punctuation of speech wrong is immediately obvious when it is read out.
Year 2 to Year 6 (US grades 2–6). Younger classes need the prompts read one at a time and a worked example on the board; older ones can be given harder prompts — a subordinate clause, a line of dialogue with correct punctuation — and it still works as a game.
From the classroom
Two things will happen and you can head both off. Children peek, and children write something they should not. The peeking is solved by folding away from you and passing on your count rather than in their own time. The other one is solved by saying at the start that every strip gets read out loud by somebody, and it might be you — that single sentence does more than any rule about being sensible. Keep the strips afterwards; a stack of them is the best possible model for teaching speech punctuation next lesson, because the class already knows what they say and they want to see them again. Two strips to a page prints about right for a class of thirty.
The board shows the prompts and a worked example so you can model the game and keep the class in step, and the printable gives you the strips themselves, with the folding line and the prompts already in order. You need both to run it — unlike the other eight, this one really happens on paper.
Choose one, two or three to an A4 page. Two is the usual choice: one gives a lot of room to write and wastes paper, three gets tight for a Year 3 hand.
The traditional run: a person, another person, where they met, what he said, what she said, and what happened in the end. That order is what makes the nonsense funny rather than random — the story has a shape even when the content does not, which is why the game has lasted a century.
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| Use it for | How | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Reluctant writers | Six prompts, one line each | 15 minutes |
| Speech punctuation | Keep the strips, mark them next lesson | 15 minutes |
| End of term | Whole class, read every story out | 20 minutes |
| A wet playtime | Print the strips, no board needed | 15 minutes |
Set it up and print the strips
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Story Builder · Sentence Scramble · Find Someone Who… — or see all nine in ESL & Oracy.
Written by a practising primary school teacher, who built Sage Teachers to use in their own classroom. Every activity here is free to try with no sign-up.