A writing activity for beginners

In one of the extra classes that I teach, "Writing" was on the schedule for today.  The only problem is that they are beginners, so it can be kind of difficult to make it happen in an interesting, easy-to-understand kind of way.  So, this is what I often do in this situation:

Take whatever you're studying in the unit.  In this case, it was free time leisure activities.  Then, make a fill in the blank paragraph on the board or Powerpoint.

I live in ______.  In _________, people like to __________, _____________, ______________, and _____________in their free time.  Young people think ____________is __________because ______________. 

First I fill in the blanks using the city where my uni is (and where I happen to live).  Then, I turn the students loose to do their own hometown.  It takes about 5 minutes.  My hope it that the students can get the hang of making some interesting, grammatically correct sentences and still use some of their own creativity and thinking power.