O is for #AtoZchallenge
O is for...
OWI
One Word Image
What is an OWI?
An OWI is a ONE WORD IMAGE. My students call it the class's OC(original character), I usally call it our Collaborative Character. This technique was created by Ben Slavic. He recommends it for beginner Comprehensible Input classes, but I find it's a welcome creative change of pace for any level.
The OWI starts with 1 Word. It's recommended that you do an object, but often we'll do a person and sometimes even an animal. After you decide what kind of object will it be, you expand by inquiring the size, the color and other descriptive features. With a beginner class you could stop there. As you progress throughout the year, you can add internal characteristics, a 'back story' and then even use your OWI as a character in a future story you create.
Here are some OWIs from my classes.
Mark le bananier, the strange banana tree was a great segway into talking about tropical Francophone countries. Trashie la poubelle, the trash can, helped us talk about recycling.
OWIs can also incorporate nuggets from your classroom culture as well.
She is orange and really small. She is nice, but naughty. Andromeda is 2 years old. She lives in the Bermuda triangle.
She doesn't like to work. She doesn't like to play baseball. She doesn't like to wear pants.*
She likes to listen to rock music. She likes leprecauns.** She likes to swim with anchovies.
She wants to be a snowflake.
*A dig at me, who prefers to wear dresses/skirts and a couple male students in the class who wear shorts year-round.
**A previous OWI in this clas was a leprecaun!
Ready to try a One Word Image?
I like how Tina Hargaden, of CI Liftoff, introduces the why of an OWI to her students by stating:"We've all heard about how play is essential for small children because that's how they learn. Play is important for us as language learners also because it gives us a chance to use our imaginations and language that goes beyond what is in our immediate surroundings. But it's not really age appropriate for us to play with Little People sets or Barbies, so we're going to pretend by making up our own stories."You will either have 1-2 volunteers(or the class artists if you do classroom jobs) set up with a large piece of paper and markers. Instruct them to draw really big, even if the object is small, so the class can see the masterpiece later on. The artists job is crucial to the fun of the OWI and you will need to check in with them often to make sure they're on track. The artists should be positioned somewhere that the rest of the class can't see what is being drawn until the big reveal at the end.
You will be talking with the rest of the class, establishing all the details you want to discuss of the OWI character one by one.
So, for size for beginners starty by asking if it's big or small.
Is it really big?
Is it gigantic?
Is it bigger than a skycraper?
Keep playing with the language they know and jot down on the board or an anchor chart new key words for them.
Play with the language and go for intriguing ideas as you continue asking about other details such as its color, age, name, likes, dislikes, job(purpose), and problem(s).
I use a GoogleSlide show to help me keep on track of which question to ask next. The slides also provide scaffolding for novice or weaker students. I have one for each language I teach, Italian and French, which you can find in my TPT shop.
Click to tweet:
Choose the answers from the loudest student, the quietest student, or take a class vote. It doesn't matter how you do discuss an OWI as long as it's comprehensible!
After we're done creating this OWI, the big reveal occurs! We applaud our hard-working artists and sometimes we have a good laugh at how our creature turned out. We follow up this guided oral input with Write and Discuss. The OWI is then hung up in our classroom art gallery. OWI make for great conversation during homeroom/study hall and might even encourage a student to sign up for your class next year.
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