Lesson Plan Subject: Language Arts
Lesson Plan Title: Party Talk
by Vickianne Palma
  

Objectives:

1. Given a pre-writing worksheet, students will identify by underlining the phrases and sentences that show action, description and thoughts of others.

2. Students will write a scene in a story applying dialogue where it is necessary.

Pre-Assessment:

Student understanding of dialogue and conversation. Student ability to identify quotation marks that begin a dialogue or conversation.

Materials:

Pencils, “party talk”, pre-writing worksheet, dry magic markers to write on board, lined paper, computer (for final draft).

Initiation/Procedure:

1. Ask students if they enjoy reading books and what kind do they enjoy.

2. Point out that most people enjoy reading books that have a lot of conversation. This is called dialogue.

3. Ask students if they use dialogue in the stories that they write.

4. Explain to students that today we are going to write a story about a Valentine party. Explain that it is not going to be a whole story. Tell them that it will only be one scene from the story.

5. Explain to the students that dialogue must always be clear as to who is speaking.

6. Finally, explain to students that there is action or description that helps the reader to see the people who are talking.

Development of Lesson:

1. Pass our pre-writing sheets and have students do at their desks.

2. Instruct students what is the objective of the worksheet.

3. Explain to students that in the story on the sheet students are to identify and underline phrases that show action. Then, underline the phrases and sentences that show description. Are there any sentences that show someone’s thoughts? Underline these too.

4. Tell students after doing this exercise that they must write their own Valentine’s party dialogue.

Closure:

Re-state what we have learned about dialogue. Today we have discovered that what makes a story easier to read and understand is the use of dialogue. Dialogue works well because it clearly makes us understand who is speaking and helps the reader identify who is talking and what is happening.

Evaluation:

If the students are successful in writing a scene using dialogue properly. See attached work. Students must underline the phrases and sentences that show action. Then the students must underline the phrases that show description. The students must also identify sentences that show someone’s thoughts. Monitoring students’ response, monitoring students answers on dry magic marker board. A checklist that states if the children’s objectives are met. Students responded and raised their hands showing an understanding. Students came to the board to share the phrases they had identified to meet the objective. Also a checklist was used to indicate the amount of student participation.

Lesson analysis:

Students were in their regular groupings. They seemed comfortable with this arrangement and were able to respond to my questions. I was encouraged by their active participation and how they were interested throughout. I drew a large heart on the blackboard, letting them guess what the objective would be. I then later connected the heart to the development of the lesson which was a story about a Valentine Day party in which the individual was not invited. Students interacted with me positively and with their peers in the same manner. Each student listened to the different dialogues that their peers created. This lesson is ongoing. I started off by letting the students identify phrases and sentences that showed action, description, and thoughts of others. They were intent on coming to the board. I have a graphic organizer on the board labeled Action, Description, and Thoughts of Others. Different colored magic markers were available to write on the dry magic marker board. I also was able to access further by using a rubric as to which student was participating and at what level. The teacher has since continued the development of the lesson with the students. The students started by brainstorming, then continued by doing a rough draft and then a formal final copy of the dialogue.
If I were to teach this lesson differently, I would have matched the colored markers to the different lists on the board. I would have color-coded the graphic organizer. I also would have used an overhead projector, instead of the board because this is an excellent way to take advantage and not turn one’s back to the students. I did not run into a problem with this group with behavior management, but it could very well be a problem. I would have kept the lesson plan basically the same, but added the overhead projector as an extra modality.

Extensions of the lesson:

One of the extensions was to write their own one scene dialogue. To add to this perhaps children could write a small skit or play with more than a scene adding more dimension and prompts.

E-mail

Vickianne

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