Focus Question: What's the deal with dialogue in stories, and why is it important?
Part 1
Show a cartoon strip to start the lesson. The website http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts is a recommendation. "In this cartoon, who is speaking? What do they say to one another?" Allow for responses. "In cartoons and stories, dialogue refers to the exchange of words between two or more characters. The cartoonists used speech bubbles to represent the conversation. Let's examine one more dialogue example." Present an additional cartoon example and pose the same questions.
"What makes a storyteller include dialogue in their work?" Note down the answers from the students. Introduce to your students the idea that dialogue is a crucial part of stories because it provides the reader with additional information about the characters, setting, problem, solution, and plot.
"Let's take a look at another image." Show an image to the class that represents a favorite tale or one they've already read throughout the unit. "What could these characters be exchanging with one another?" Utilize the class's ideas. They'll probably quote lines or comparable speeches from the narrative.
Ask a student you have chosen to come up with. Act as though the learner and you are two distinct characters in the drawing. Engage in discourse (talk). "You will now have an opportunity to create your dialogue with a partner." Students should work in pairs to act like the characters in the illustration. Give them a few minutes so you can talk to them. When you get back to a large group, ask the students to share a little bit of their conversation.
Part 2
Give students more detail about dialogue. "Dialogue is a conversation between two or more characters. It helps to understand the emotions of the characters, provides additional details about the setting or events, and makes the story more interesting for the reader. Cartoonists use speech bubbles to enclose dialogue in their works. Let's take an example of a different book and examine how the author has used dialogue in it."
"Yesterday, we pretended to be characters from a story. Today, we want to write our dialogue and become authors." To prepare, we're going to check out Marc Brown's "Arthur Writes a Story." As we read, let's pay attention to how characters converse with each other and how dialogue advances the plot, problem/solution, character, and setting. At the end of the book, we'll review the components of a narrative.
Give each student a copy of the comic strip you made using http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/comiccreator/comiccreator.html. To give your students a choice of which cartoon to write dialogue for, you might want to print multiple copies. Students can also use this website as a resource to practice dialogue on their own.
Allow enough time for the students to develop the dialogue for the comic strip. When they are done, they should discuss their dialogue with a companion. Save the conversations for use in Part 3.
Part 3
Get a storybook with dialogue that is large-printed or oversized. Read the narrative or the dialogue-containing passage. Ask the class, "Do the characters in this story speak to each other? " while they are gathered in a large group. "How can we be certain that they are exchanging messages? Are there any speech bubbles visible?" Await the replies. When speech bubbles aren't large enough to be used, authors have to find other ways to indicate that a character is speaking. "Does anyone have any idea how the writers convey speech?" Allow for responses. Perhaps a few pupils are familiar with quotation marks.
Encourage pupils to recognize citation marks in a narrative. "When a character starts speaking and when they stop speaking, authors indicate these events with quotation marks. When a character speaks, quotation marks, which resemble hanging double commas, appear around the words."
Go through the dialogue-filled large-print book. Draw attention to the story's use of quotation marks.
After the story, ask the students to use sticky notes to identify the quotation marks that begin and end a passage. Remember to emphasize that quotation marks are used in pairs. Every time someone speaks, there are quotation marks before and after them. "Quotation marks embrace the spoken word."
Show the students the Arthur cartoon you made in Part 2 to assist them in using quotation marks. Return and demonstrate the proper placement of the quote marks. When you are adding elements to your cartoon strip, make sure to explain where they should go.
"It's your turn to include quotation marks now. Go back and add quotation marks to the dialogue your characters are speaking in the cartoon you made yesterday. Keep in mind that you must use both opening and closing quotation marks. Make sure you give it your all." Gather up the finished product.
Language Skills Mini-Lesson
Flip back to the storybook, and have your students check which words are capitalized. Draw attention to the capitalized proper nouns, which are names of individuals, places, occasions, etc. As you write proper nouns on the board, ask the students to provide examples. This will help you assess their comprehension and understanding of proper nouns.
Distribute the LW-2-1-2_Proper Nouns sheet to the class. Have them complete the first sentence, and then ask them to work with a partner to complete the second sentence. Students should complete the remaining sentences independently. A key (LW-2-1-2_Proper Nouns KEY) is available for you to check their work. As a class, go over the solutions and discuss any questions that may arise.
Extension:
It is possible to teach students who are struggling with dialogue in small groups or one-on-one settings. They can return to enclosing their existing sentences in quotation marks. After that, let the students write their own dialogue.
Give each student a copy of a brief narrative that isn't enclosed in quotation marks. When appropriate, students can add quote marks to their work to show that they have learned.