Write a first-person story from the perspective of an average fifth-grade student describing what he did on typical Saturday. The story should be around 10 sentences long, with each sentence describing a distinct event. Avoid any direct mention of cause-and-effect in the story -- for example, "I had a big glass of lemonade to cool myself off because it was so hot." The point of the exercise is to have students find these relationships on their own, and spelling them out defeats that purpose.
Type the story on a word processor, making each sentence its own paragraph. Include an appropriate title that frames the context of the story, such as "Richie's Busy Saturday." Rearrange the sentences in random order, label each with a number, print the story and make enough copies for every student in your class.
Hand out the scrambled story and read it aloud to the class. Tell students that every event in the story has a clear logical connection to the next event. Help the class get started by asking if anyone has a guess about which sentence should be first. Your first sentence should be written so that students will easily be able to place it at the beginning, because it will not have any lead-in beside the title. For example, "Last Saturday morning, I stretched my arms as I woke up from a nice dream."
Ask students to complete the reordering of the story on their own. When everyone is finished, ask for volunteers to read the sequence of numbers corresponding to how they ordered the sentences. If a volunteer gives the wrong answer, ask for more volunteers until someone gets the correct one, then go back to explain why the incorrect response wasn't right. When you have all 10 sentences in the correct order, reread the whole story in correct order aloud. Hearing the whole story will help students see the flow of the sequence of events, instead of just the connection between one event and the next.