Add and Pass

Each student starts a story on their sheet, writes for a minute, then passes the paper on. The next student reads and continues. The story accrues contributions from the whole class, producing an unpredictable collaborative artefact.

Popularised by Matt Miller's Ditch That Textbook blog as a low-prep collaborative-writing activity; the underlying mechanic is the classic surrealist cadavre exquis.

Procedure

1. Every student starts with a blank sheet of paper and an opening prompt ("It was the morning of my eighth birthday when..." or an image).
2. Write for 60–90 seconds — one or two sentences.
3. Pass the paper to the next student (clockwise, or to a random person).
4. The next student reads the whole story so far then adds 1–2 sentences.
5. Continue passing for 6–10 rounds.
6. Wrap-up warning: announce "two rounds left" so writers can steer toward an ending.
7. Share: students read their final stories aloud in groups, or post to the wall.

Why It Works

• Forced narrative coherence: every writer must read what came before, so plot, character, and tense consistency become real concerns.
• Distributed creativity: nobody owns the story — nobody blocks. Stuck students can "just continue."
• High output volume: 10 rounds × 2 sentences each = 20 sentences of practice per story.
• Permission to be strange: the collaborative frame invites absurd turns; students take risks they wouldn't alone.
• Self-correcting pace: writers adjust pace to what came before; slow openings get accelerated; wild detours get grounded.

Variations

• Digital version: Google Doc shared with 4–6 students per doc. Passing = moving to the next heading. Can be done asynchronously across a week.
• Genre-locked: the story must stay in a declared genre (horror, romance, sci-fi, fairy-tale). Students practise genre conventions.
• Target-language round: at random, the teacher announces "This round must include a past perfect" / "...a phrasal verb" / "...reported speech." Grammar practice sneaks into creative writing.
• See also: Add and Pass - Make It Better for a grammar-repair variant, Add and Pass - Vocabulary for a word-insertion variant.
• Circular version: papers return to their original author after making a full loop. The starter writes the ending.

Tips

• Time boxes matter. 60–90 seconds per round. Longer → boredom; shorter → panic.
• Readable handwriting or a shared digital doc — illegible stories die.
• Require rereading the whole story before adding. Writers who skip this produce incoherent leaps.
• Post final stories: a gallery wall of 10 class stories is a reading-practice resource for the following lesson.
• Works A2 and up. Below A2, the cognitive load of reading + writing + reading-others' handwriting overwhelms.

Source

Miller, M. (2019) Add and pass: A fun activity to get them moving and creating. Ditch That Textbook. Originating form: Surrealist cadavre exquis parlour game (André Breton et al., 1920s).