I designed this simple past exercise as an inclusive writing activity. There are four levels:

1. Students don’t need vocabulary input and can form the simple past forms themselves with an appropriate key. If they are very advanced or native speakers, they can simply write a completely free story.
2. Students need vocabulary input but don’t need the simple past forms. They can work with a general key.
3. Students need the simple past forms as help but can write their own short sentences with the help of a rudimentary scaffolding.
4. Students cannot form their own sentences yet and need a concrete scaffolding, so they only need to chronologically fill in the simple past forms into the gaps of the prewritten text.