Writing Lesson Plans

Can We Talk?

"One of the hardest things for my students to understand is the old rule about changing paragraphs when a new speaker talks. After having a few lessons that go over the rules of writing dialogue, I have the students pair together. Each person draws a portrait of their partner from the shoulders up. This makes for a lot of giggles at the time, but the students do seem to try their best to capture a true likeness of their partners. Once this is done, the students mount these creations on a large sized piece of construction paper with a sheet of notebook paper that will be used for their dialogue. They write a conversation to go with this project with each person writing their own words. Each time it's their turn to speak, they must start a new line on the paper indenting as they go. This makes for a cute display for open house or conferences."
Submitted by: Patricia Pason sunset@email-removed , a fifth grade teacher at Spring Creek Elementary in Spring Creek, Nevada. This tip was published in the NEA's Weekly "Works4Me" Email list.