I got this idea from a TedX talk by Chris Lonsdale: "How to learn any language in six months."(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0yGdNEWdn0).
The concept is simple: create a simple 3x3x3 matrix of three nouns, three verbs and three adjectives. Make sentences using one of the nouns, one verb, and one adjective. The goal is to make as many meaningful combinations as possible.
The players should feel free to add other words and parts of speech, but the basis of the sentence should be three words from the matrix.
The words can be chosen randomly, according to a theme, or taken from a reading. (If they are random, they should include words with distinctive meanings.)
Example:
Dog, Greed, Heart
Live, eat, give birth
Original, necessary, sickly
My dog wants to eat that sickly bird.
Eat, my sickly young puppy dog.
Sickly dogs must eat or be eaten.
Variations:
Ask players to write ten nouns, verbs, and adjectives each, on separate index cards, and then combine them randomly: one noun, one verb, one adjective.
Take the words from a reading, copying the first ten nouns, verbs and adjectives that occur.
Have participants choose words that are most important to them, for whatever reason.
Make sentences with a missing noun, verb, and adjective and then give them to others to fill them in (like Mad Libs).