In this activity, students have to develop their creativity and write a story inspired by and based on some weird and funny pictures.
The story should be told in the past simple, continuous and past perfect using connectors of sequence and other language resources. It should have a logical structure and be as original as possible. The stories can be road , horror or humour ones.
Below you can read the creations made by the students of the B1 level English workshops along with the picture used for their inspiration.
Happy reading!
A TERRIBLE DAY IN A SAFARI PARK
A long time ago, a family (father, mother and two children) decided to go to a safari park. The children were looking forward to visiting it, since they wanted to see a lot of animals like elephants, tigers, crocodiles, giraffes, lions and other kinds of animals.
The family went by car to the park. As soon as they arrived at the safari park, they got out of the car and walked through the paths, which had fences on the sides, to see all the animals along the narrow way. It was a sunny day and it was very hot. The children were tired, but as they hadn't visited the lion's zone, the family decided to watch them and they returned towards the car. They all got into the car and went to look for the place where the lions were.
When the family saw several lions lying on the grass, the father stopped the car engine to watch them. The lions seemed very quiet. Suddenly, two female lions came towards them and one of them quickly bit the wheel of the car and the other one jumped to the top of the car. Immediately, the children started to cry and shout without stopping. All of them were nervous and terrified. As soon as it was possible the father started the car, and in a hurry they left the park.
Finally, the father had to replace the wheel of the car with a spare tyre once they were out of the zoo.
After all, the family enjoyed
watching the animals but, they'll never forget that horrible day.
A person who wants to speak to his family enters a phone booth on the street. He dials and there was no one else at the other end of the line. When the person tried to open the cabin to go out, the door was blocked up.
Next, he looked at some people near the booth and shouted to them, but nobody was listening to him. Immediately, he tried to phone other people but had no more coins left. Then he started to get really worried and suddenly he reviewed his whole life.
Unexpectedly, a truck went to the booth and the man thought that the driver would help him, but instead of that, the driver carried the booth in the truck, ignoring the person who asked for help.
He drove a long way to the booth storage yard and left it with many others. When the man realized what place it was, he panicked.
He saw a lot of people with the same problem, inside the phone booths, there were a lot of dead people and some of them hanging with the telephone cord.
MRS HANDYWOMAN'S DREAM CAR
Mrs
Handywoman is a retired, modern and inventor woman. She spends many times in
the DIY shops, because she likes to give a new life to the old things, while
her parrot flutters around her. She likes travelling and doing it in a personal
way.
Someday, as she was taking a cup of tea in her terrace porch, she thought about building a car from and old and abandoned container that she has seen from her terrace. Soon Mrs Handywoman started to dream of her perfect car, a non polluting car, but a car with an engine driven by pedals, and running on solar power from its battery. Evereytime it went downhill, it would charge its battery. Moreover, when it was windy, the parrot’s wings would allow it to continue her path. A convertible car to be able to see the stars at night.
Some
time later, Handywoman, after some hard
and painstaking work, thought of the car of her dreams.
One day as she was driving around Incheland, she exceeded the speed limit. At that moment two policemen who were patrolling the street make them to pull over. She was surprised to see such small people, patrolling on a pony and a Great Dane, but the old woman felt happy and comfortable with these people, and she thought it was a good place to live in.
She helped the Incheland people to live in a more appropriated way to their height, building things to suit them. Handywoman taught them to become big engineers and all of them were happy being different, because all of us are different and special.
A NICE TRIP
Once upon a time, a group of children decided to visit an imaginary country, where children were able to do a lot of things different from what older people usually do.
To start off , the children decided not to eat fast food. Also, they would look after trees every day. Next, they would clean the forest and they would paint the walls with nice pictures.
Moreover, they didn’t like pollution.
As soon as they arrived in this country, they decided on their strategy: at dusk they would give a concert in the main square of the town, in which they would invite everyone to speak about the dangers of pollution for the planet.
But people didn’t want to collaborate with this project.
After that, children showed them a catastrophic video about the situation of the planet, and they changed everyone’s mind.
Eventually, they will end up saving this country.
HALLOWEEN MIDNIGHT It was midnight on Halloween. Four friends had planned a hike in a little village nearby. When they got to the village, a party was starting in the square. They decided to enjoy the party before beginning the hiking route. In the square everybody danced, laughed and shouted ‘trick or treat!!’ One little kid, no more than three years old, dressed up as a skeleton, came up to one of the friends. ‘Trick or treat !!’ , he said. The hiker gave a handful of candies to the young skeleton.
Among the candies, a little pill of drugs changed hands. The hikers left the village late after midnight. It was foggy and especially dark that night because the moon was not visible. Their minds were also foggy because of the alcohol and drugs. The fog didn’t allow them to see more than two meters away. In the haze, they saw some animal movements. Elephants, lions, giant crows, and others were shouting strange cries. They seemed to sing ‘Trick or treat !!’, and laugh aloud. The four friends got more and more horrified. A dull sound in the distance got closer little by little. At the same time a dim light began to illuminate the trees, and the sound became a thunderous noise. Eventually the four friends were able to distinguish a motorcycle that was driven by a skeleton. A pirate flag waved above the motorcycle and the skeleton brandished a scythe in his left hand. In a few seconds the motorcycle turned towards the four friends. The bright light of the bike blinded them as it was approaching them. They only could see the skull and crossbones waving in the air. Suddenly they heard the sharp sound of the scythe. ‘Trick or treat !!’ they believed to have heard at the same time. As the thunderous sound of the bike faded away in the dark each one of the four friends touched their heads. No heads had been cut off. However, one hand was missing. If you visit that place, you will find a memorial to the lost hand.
THE TREE OF LIFE The story begins with two lovers. Every day, they met at a specific point. At that point, they promised to marry each other, and as a symbol of their love, they decided to plant a tree that they cared for daily. One day John died suddenly and Mary decided to bury him at that important point. And the tree grew... In one of the visits, Mary saw construction staff and when she asked them, she learned that the State of Wisconsin was going to build a road that would pass exactly through this point.
Then, she fought with all her strength to prevent the road from passing through that point. In the end, after a lot of effort and struggle, Mary got her State of Wisconsin to deflect the road around this point, respecting this point as a symbol of eternal love. THE END
THE ENGLISH WAY OF ST JAMES
To begin with, let’s talk about the characters of this story. They are Susan and George. They lived in London and they are financial brokers. They decided to leave their jobs for a year and do the English Way of St. James.
Susan and George, arrived at the first stage in Ferrol. The first thing they had to do was to look for a hostel, as they had not booked a hostel. They wanted to experience the true meaning of adventure. The first day, right after dawn, they set off. It was a very rainy day and they weren’t wearing raincoats and their boots weren’t suitable for rain, so they ended up completely wet. Then they looked for a hostel where they could change and rest and finish the first stage. After that, they decided to book the following hostels and buy appropriate clothing and footwear. The following stages passed without incidents. Susan and George were amazed by the landscape and the people they met along the way. During the different stages, they passed through an enchanted forest with trees surrounded by moss and lush vegetation. They also saw different metal statues of animals. They had never felt so happy and relaxed. They were sure that doing the Camino had been a great idea. Finally, Susan and George didn't want to return to their stressful life and decided to stay and live in a small town. They had been caught by the charm of the way. Some time later, Susan and George, opened a hostel for pilgrims.
Has the world gone mad? Small things have become bigger !! The fish are flying and they are trying to break into the houses through the roofs !! The soft drinks are flooding the houses !! The trees are turning into implausible shapes. Will all this be due to climate change? or ...are they just vague ideas of a twisted mind? The hand of a man wants to encompas everything, but his imagination is closer to dementia than sanity. And we wonder, can we put an end to this madness? Man must understand that if you destroy your environment, you´ll be destroying yourself.
THE TRAIN TRIP
This happened three years ago, when my friends, Amy and Paul got engaged. They decided to go to Paris, because they wanted to celebrate their anniversary.
The first part of the journey went quite well and was fine. However, the second part was not so good but awful.
They were travelling by train when, suddenly, it started to snow. The train had to stop and it did so very close to the railway station. While people were waiting on the train, it stopped snowing. They realized they weren't wearing appropiate clothes and they started to freeze. Fortunately, the railway station had clothes shops and there were also supermarkets so they could buy some warm clothes and food.
In the end, Amy and Paul arrived in Paris and were able to meet new friends instead of travelling alone the rest of the trip.
