Since this activity focuses so much on group work, have students participate in preparing the backbone of a "group essay" that summarizes their experience!

Provide each student in the group with a piece of paper. Each person will be responsible for writing a paragraph.

Next, have the group brainstorm how they will address this statement: "Group Jump Rope is a lot like real life." Have the group come up with as many examples as possible. (Examples might include such ideas as, "many jobs require that people work together," or, "raising a family requires that people work together," etc.)

Now, each person needs to pick one of the examples. They will then individually write a paragraph that explains their example. (If they are having trouble, tell them they should state the example, describe how people might have to work together, and why they need to work together.)

When the students are done with their paragraphs, discuss how the paragraphs that each person wrote could be combined to form the body of an essay. All that would be needed is an introductory paragraph, and a summary paragraph.

Standards

This activity supports California Academic Content Standards - English-Language Arts - Fourth - Writing - Writing Strategies Organization and Focus. Standard 1.2c: Create multiple paragraph compositions that include supporting paragraphs with simple facts, details, and explanations.