Fortune Cookies: Focusing a Description with Examples

 

Purpose of Exercise: This is a "stretching exercise" that calls for students to expand and develop a particular thought, then revise and narrow the scope of that thought.

 

Description: Students take a fortune-cookie fortune and manipulate it. You can search online for fortune cookie phrases on sites like fortunecookiemessage.com, or you may use the pre-cut strips that we have available in the Writing Center.

 

Suggested Time: 15-20 minutes

 

Procedure: This is best done in groups at the tables. Each group chooses a fortune out of a box or bag and writes down the fortune at the top of a clean page.

 

Now give the students a few moments to consider their fortunes, and have them rewrite their fortune in a few sentences. They can adapt and expand their fortunes but they must stick to the original spirit and intent of the fortune.

 

Now, allowing about 10 minutes, tell the students to underline any strong words or descriptions they wrote in their revised fortunes. These should be whatever words make a strong impression. Using the underlined words as a guide, have the students write a short example of how this fortune can be demonstrated. The example could be based on a personal experience, on a historic or current event, or on a hypothetical case. For example, if the fortune refers to a time when hardship makes us stronger, then the group could describe an example of a student failing a test but becoming a better, more motivated students because of the failure.

 

Have each group share the revised fortune and example with the entire class.

 

This exercise gives students a light stretching exercise before a good writing workout. It encourages them to think about the importance of examples to capture some narrow aspect of a main idea, thought, or message.

 

 

 

Fortune Cookie Messages

These are laminated and available for you to use in the center with your classes.

1. Broke is only temporary! Poor is a state of mind.

 

1. Stop worrying about the road not taken and pave over the one you did.

 

1. Well-arranged time is the surest sign of a well-arranged mind.

 

1. Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.

 

1. The man on the top of the mountain did not fall there.

 

1. The earth is a school; learn in it.

 

1. Tell them what you really think. Otherwise, nothing will change.

 

1. A smile is your passport into the hearts of others.

 

1. Take it easy.

 

1. A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.

 

1. Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

 

1. If you want the rainbow, you have to tolerate the rain.

 

1. Any decision you have to make tomorrow is a good decision.

 

1. Movies have pause buttons; friends do not.

 

1. Do not follow where the path may lead; Go where there is no path and leave a trail.

 

1. Pick a path with heart.