Day 24: Writing captions for year-in-review photo dump
An easy language-focused lesson on Instagram caption style, pragmatic functions, and personal storytelling. This pairs beautifully with Day 22 "Using Students' Photos": students can reuse photos they brought for that lesson!
Goals: practice specific pragmatic functions (thanking, reflecting, expressing surprise), recognize and use informal/casual written English, personalize language through photo selection.
Timing: 15-30 minutes.
If you only have 10 minutes: Do the phrase discovery activity (Step 2), then have students complete one or two sentence starters about their year (Step 4).
Timing: 15-30 minutes.
If you only have 10 minutes: Do the phrase discovery activity (Step 2), then have students complete one or two sentence starters about their year (Step 4).
Lesson ideas
Say something like:
Warm-up questions:
Warm-up questions:
- Do you ever post year / month photo dumps?
- Do you read captions or just look at photos?
- Do captions change how you see a photo?
Say something like: "Photo dump captions have patterns. Let's look at some common phrases people use to talk about their year."
Show students real Instagram captions. Direct them to find specific phrases based on their meaning/function.
Answer key and CCQS
Check answers together. Make sure students understand what each phrase means and when to use it.
Show students real Instagram captions. Direct them to find specific phrases based on their meaning/function.
Answer key and CCQS
Check answers together. Make sure students understand what each phrase means and when to use it.
Go to https://wordwall.net/resource/104749156 and complete a simple gapfill activity where students need to choose between two options.
Say something like: "Now it's your turn. Choose up to 3 moments from your year and write a caption. Use the phrases we've learned today."
Task: Write a 2–4 sentence Instagram-style caption for your year.
Encourage:
Task: Write a 2–4 sentence Instagram-style caption for your year.
Encourage:
- Use at least 2–3 of the phrases we learned
- Mix functions (gratitude + surprise + reflection)
- Keep it casual and personal
- Emojis are welcome! 😊
Students share their captions in pairs or small groups. Discussion prompts:
- What surprised you about your partner's year?
- Which phrase did you like the most in their caption?
- Would you actually post this on Instagram, or is it too personal?
Ask:
- Was it easy or hard to write about your year this way?
- Do you think writing captions like this helps you reflect, or is it just for show?
- What's one thing you want to remember about 2025?