Yes that's the sort of info I was looking for. Thanks! I haven't done live reading, but I've worked with other bits of text/audio that were spontaneously generated in class. I'm usually not sure what to do with them, after we've worked through what the text actually means.

Thanks for the response. The part I was interested in was covered in "So I asked my...". So basically you prompt them with a/some question(s), which they answer orally, then you prompt them more to get a sentence which you write (potentially reformulated) on the board. Did you follow the writing (it's really live writing isn't it?) with Jason's word swimming idea or did you do something else? Hypothetically speaking how might you have followed up the writing activity with a focus on form?

How does the 'generation' of the text actually work in concrete terms? How do you go from talking for 20 minutes (presumably about valentines day) to "Valentine's day is ..." I take it you prompt them with questions or a stock outline format, and then they have answers or they don't and you write something. Or maybe they write something. On your way to your first complete sentence, what do you say? What do the Ss say? What do you actually write on the board? Do you rework it after writing?