Curated OER
What's Missing FrombRomeo and Juliet? Part 2
Fill in the blank on these quotes from Romeo and Juliet. The tricky part is that you are only told the speaker in two instances. Choose from four words the one that belongs in the quote. Test your class's knowledge of the play!
Curated OER
The Stuff of Stories: Using Museums to Inspire Student Writing
Middle schoolers write descriptions, narratives, and dialogues based on objects of art and time periods in a museum. They base several writing assignments on art objects and paintings, including a literal description and an emotional...
Curated OER
Boys Will Be Boys...Right?
Through this exercise, high schoolers identify character traits present in Romeo and Juliet. They listen to an excerpt from "The Office of Christian Parents: Showing How Children Are to be Governed" and participate in a Socratic...
Curated OER
Memoir
After reading and analyzing two narrative memoirs, middle schoolers engage in a variety of activities, including writing an essay, developing a story map, and creating character charts. They then compare and contrast story maps, and...
Curated OER
A PLAY ON WORDS
After making predictions about Janell Cannon's story Verdi, middle schoolers read through the book and make a new list of descriptions, personality traits, etc. They select an animal and write a narrative story about the animal, paying...
Curated OER
What a Character!
Middle schoolers read a novel and discuss character personality. First, they analyze a character in a novel and keep a chart or web of the character's identity, which includes specific examples from the book. They then write a script...
Curated OER
Imagine That!
Enter the fantastical world of "Dungeons and Dragons" and other role-playing games with this lesson from The New York Times. Middle schoolers create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own community. Then, they write a...
Curated OER
Passages of Dialogue
Help your learners use dialogue in their stories. This presentation explores the use of dialogue in narratives. It is a comprehensive and thoughtful look at this topic.
Curated OER
"Lawd! Lawd! Lawd!"
From British accents to Texan drawls, a character's dialect can be an important part of the reading experience. A Six-Trait writing activity guides learners through the analysis of a character's dialect (Daniel Keyes's Flowers for...
Art Institute of Chicago
Act It Out
Examine two works of art and use these pieces as inspiration for dialogues. The whole class discusses Renoir's Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise and Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge. Then, in groups of either three or ten, pupils...
Curated OER
Literary Techniques
Need to review literary terms/techniques with your class? The slides in this presentation define and give examples of 22 common literary terms. The PowerPoint could be used for AP test prep.
Curated OER
Having Fun with Dialogues
Students investigate how to gain confidence in speaking through using scripted dialogues. They should remember to use familiar dialogues/dialogues based on language recently studied. Students incorporate nonsense into the mix of...
Curated OER
Writing - Direct Speech
The art of writing dialogue is the focus of this language arts resource. After a review of the rules of writing direct speech, youngsters try their hand at creating dialogue used by characters they create in their writing. They focus on...
Curated OER
Practice With Commas
The instructions say to put commas where they belong, and that is just what your class will do as they practice comma placement and use. There are 20 sentences in desperate need of commas and four extensions exercises where comma use is...
Curated OER
Getting Hooked, Introduction for a Narrative
How can you interest your reader? Here is a great lesson on reading and discussing the characteristics of a narrative. Elementary schoolers explore writing techniques to hook the reader. They identify their hook and share their...
Curated OER
When A Story Met A Sandwich
How is a story like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Use making a sandwich as a metaphor to remind your writers that a good, solid beginning, a rich and rewarding middle, and an ending that brings everything together spices up a...
Curated OER
Enhancing Your Writing
Help your class enrich their writing using this presentation. It focuses on direct and indirect speech, and identifies the way to incorporate it into writing. It provides a great way to review punctuation rules and usage as well.
Curated OER
Speech Marks
The question marks, periods, commas, and quotation marks are missing. It's up to your class to fix each of six statements by adding proper punctuation. Early finishers are encouraged to compose properly punctuated sentences of their own.
Curated OER
Speech Marks
Well, here is a fun way to practice punctuating dialogue. There are eight different images each containing an incomplete speech phrase. It's up to the kids to conceive and write what the people in each image might say. Tip: Do the...
Curated OER
Speech Marks 2
Fixing incorrect punctuation can be a great way to teach where quotation marks should go when writing dialogue. Learners fix eight sentences, then write a few of their own.
Curated OER
Spanish: Body Parts and Beyond
Students drill on Spanish vocabulary words by participating in a card game. They use a list of teacher-prepared clues that are glued to cards. Later they apply these words to skits and dialogues about health issues.
Curated OER
A Model with Specific Purpose
Students view a particular image and engage in a dialogue about the picture. They follow a script in Latin detailing a reponse to the image. They discuss how one picture can serve several different purposes.
Curated OER
A Midsummer Night's Dream
You might not be able to put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes but you can generate interest in A Midsummer’s Night Dream in that length of time. As an introduction to Shakespeare’s comedy, pairs of students assume the roles of...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 10: Writing Really Good Dialogue
Boring dialogue can run a great story into the ground; get your novelists using dialogue as a tool to move their story into deeper and more developed territory. As part of a larger writing series, this instructional activity has a...