One idea is to give each student a short article from a children's magazine and have them read it for fifteen minutes. Then you can ask each child to write down the author's five main ideas from the article and why they chose those answers. Once the students are finished writing their answers, have each one stand in front of the class and discuss the main ideas of the article. You'll also give feedback and ask questions about the students' answers.
Another idea is to give each student a pair of ten sentences with two underlined words that the students are not too familiar with. Ask the students to use context clues within each sentence to determine the meanings of the underlined words in those sentences. Then let the students create a two-paragraph story with the underlined words for which they found the correct meaning. Finally, you can ask each student to give a ten-minute summary of the stories they wrote.
If you're teaching a high school history class, you can assign each student a topic and then ask them to research this topic in the encyclopedia. Then tell them to read the encyclopedia articles and write a three-page analysis of them. In the analysis, the students should discuss the main ideas, how the articles contribute to the understanding of the topic, and what are the weaknesses and strengths in the articles.
You can also give each student a music CD from a particular genre and then ask them to listen to it and write a two-page review of the CD. Before giving the assignment, you want to spend a week discussing how students should write a review and let them read sample reviews. When the students return to class with the CDs you assigned them, have each student stand in front of the class, play a short song from the CD and discuss what they wrote.