Before students begin a reading activity, I post pictures/clip art related to the story on the board or give students a hard copy. Students work in pairs to create their own stories based on the pictures, and they share them with a partner.
Another variation is to have small groups of students (4-6 students in a group) work together. Using the pictures on the board, one student in the group will come up with the first sentence of a story. The next student will continue the story. Students in the group will continue until they have used all pictures on the board, and have told the story from start to finish.
This affords students the opportunity to begin thinking about what they will be reading in the story before they actually begin to read. Having the visuals on the board, and the opportunity to speak in the target language with classmates about what the pictures represent and how they might fit together in a story gives students a preview of imagery and vocabulary, and it activates prior knowledge.
This activity can be modified for all levels of the target language. For lower level classes, I use fewer pictures, and if the class is small enough, I will sometimes do this as a whole class activity. The following pictures are taken from www.ignesscientiae.com. I've used them with upper level students prior to reading La noche boca arriba by Julio Cortazar.
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