I have unconditional love for my children. I do not have unconditional love for my students. I do love them when they work hard. They did work hard yesterday. So I felt good. (This is a required drawing course so sometimes it is an uphill battle, depending on the group.)
In order to have them think more about how to compose, I put out some "arbitrary" objects on the floor in no particular order (far enough apart not to be closely related visually): a (white) plaster foot with a (white) sock on it, a (white) plaster leg with a foot with a (white) sock on it, a fairly tall standing (clay) figure, a standing fan, a large stuffed chartreuse snake, some dried flowers. I asked them to make their own composition of the objects, rearranging on the paper as necessary to make it work compositionally. They were attentive and did some interesting work.
Then I asked them to do a drawing using their first composition as reference point, and draw as if they had moved 90 degrees in the direction of their choice. It was hard, but they enjoyed using some new brain cells. It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle, only using their own drawings. Fun.