Teaching Intermediate Students About Dialogue

This is a difficult thing and many adults don't know how to use dialogue properly. Here are some ideas for teaching it to 4th or 5th grade students that might be fun and helpful

1.  Brainstorm - ask the kids what they already know about dialogue. What is it? The will probably say "people talking". Guide them to tell you more... what does it look like in a book? (quotation marks) How do you know who is speaking? (tag lines / "details") . . . you will be surprised how much they come up with when they can bounce ideas off each other. Ask someone to give you an example and write it on the board. Use the example to help you discuss the placement of the punctuation and tag line with the students. Discuss how tag lines can be made more interesting by using adverbs to spice things up ("I have a stomachache," moaned Sara.)

2.  Have kids write down what the class has brainstormed as part of their notes, including the example. I provided some written notes on paper, but I had them add a few things. When they write it themselves, its much more meaningful.

3. Then, I used my language series reteach page. It was very easy. It just listed a bunch of sentences written as dialogue and the students very simply had to underline exactly the words that were said. All the students could do this very quickly, making this a good confidence booster.

4. The second task on the reteach page I used was to have students write a 5 line conversation of their own. Instead of following the directions exactly here, I had kids get into groups of 2 or 3 and make up the conversation together. Remember, I have only just barely introduced this so I don't feel the need to silent, solo seat work at this point.

5.  Have students "perform" their conversations and discuss where they included punctuation.

6.  During another lesson, distribute copies of some easy to read books that contain dialogue. I used the the Bunnicula spin-off books which are aimed at a 3rd grade reading level or lower. Have students find examples of dialogue like a scavenger hunt. Have them find one with the tag line it the beginning of the sentence, for example. Have them fine one exclamatory, one declarative, one imperative and one interrogative sentence. Extend it as far as you want it to go. You could give them one item to find at a time and the first pair that finds it correctly gets a point. The group with the most points at the end of the class could win an ice cream from the cafeteria or a small prize.

7.  During a subsequent lesson, give students a couple of frames from a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. You can get cartoons from the paper or a book. Have students work in pairs to take the dialogue in the speech balloons and write it as dialogue. Students can then put together their work as a class to complete the whole story!

8.  Another thing you can do is to write some quotations on sentence strips, cut them up and have students arrange them appropriately so they can show you that they know where the punctuation goes. This makes a great centers activity and informal assessment.

9.  For morning work or as an "exit ticket" why not chop up your state's released tests that they have included in the past regarding dialogue. This way, students will be familiar with the kind of questions asked and the format of the test.