A mini saga is a short story made up of exactly 50 words with a title consisting of less than 15 words. You can either include or exclude the title in the 50 word count but you should make that clear at the beginning of the activity.

Here's an example:

Preparation
You can read them the story, dictate it, do it as a relay dictation or hand out a printed copy.

One cold Monday morning aliens landed. They climbed slowly down a metal ladder. They stole the juiciest of my apples. Rover ran out barking angrily. They threw him carelessly in their old cloth apple bag. I shouted out desperately to them. They ignored me. They left. I miss my dog.

You can then ask your learners:
1 what they think of the story.
2 How did it make them feel.
3 What kind of language did it use (adjectives, adverbs, quite short sentences etc)
4 Does it remind them of a game they've played in class. (Samorost)

Tell your learners that they are going to play a little bit of the game and they are going to write a mini saga about it. They then need to take a pen and piece of paper to the computer room.


Play
In the computer room they should open two internet explorer windows.
1 The game
2 The Walkthrough

If they look at the first title page of the Samorost game they should be able to see a small box in the bottom left hand corner which says "Load Level". They should click on this and type in POKLOP.

They should scan read the walkthrough to play this screen and then write their mini saga based on what they saw happen on that one screen.

Post Play
Learners compare mini sagas and attempt to add more adjectives and adverbs by eliminating language elsewhere in their mini saga. Remember the 50 words limit and be strict - it is 50 words and not a word more or less.