Learning to Give
Teaching Playwriting in Schools
The world is a stage, and so is your classroom! Hone the skills of the next generation of Tony® award winners with a set of exercises, reference pages, writing prompts, and excerpts from famous plays.
Curated OER
Scriptwriting Skill Module: Dialogue
What is dialogue? What must it contain? Use this plan to discuss dialogue with your emerging writers. They write a dialogue in script form to dramatize a conversation. Dialogue examples are included.
EngageNY
Writing the Children’s Book: Day Two
Following a brief mini-lesson on using dialogue in fiction, young writers continue day two of their writing workshop. They work on the second half of their Children's Book Storyboards, and then they turn and talk with partners to reflect...
Curated OER
Character Attributes in Writing
Third graders analyze the importance of characters in fiction writing and performances. In this theatre lesson, 3rd graders identify the important characteristics of a fictional character and how to portray a character through many...
Bright Hub Education
Writing Effective Dialogue
Wait, there is an effective way to practice writing dialogue with your high school class? Great! High schoolers will have a blast writing dialogue using a list of potentially silly situations and an image of people talking. Employ the...
Curated OER
Surveying Salinger with Dialogue and Disillusionment
Find creative ways to teach Salinger's stories by focusing on dialogue, cultural context, and characterization.
Curated OER
Cross-Cultural Dialogue Lesson
Students read and analyze a personal narrative written about a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English in Guinea-Bissau, Africa. They discuss the concept of crossing cultures, analyze maps, complete worksheets, and develop a writing...
Scholastic
Narrative Writing
If you're looking to start a unit based around narrative writing, make sure to consider this resource while you're planning. This book covers five topics: writing personal narratives, writing narratives about others, writing narratives...
EngageNY
Writing to Show, Not Tell: Dialogue, Sensory Words, and Strong Action Verbs
Consume, gobble, devour ... serving up strong verbs! Writers focus on using dialogue, strong action verbs, and sensory details in their writing. After analyzing a model narrative, they apply their learning to their own hero's journey...
Curated OER
Developing Dialogue
Why do people argue? Use the article "A Holiday Medley, Off Key" to discuss the struggles that interfaith couples face when choosing to celebrate certain holidays. Then, in small groups, encourage learners to write dialogues that...
Curated OER
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Students read a chapter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and define new words for their dictionaries. In this vocabulary lesson students choose two or three assignment from a list of projects and complete it using the text in the...
Curated OER
Imagine That!
Enter the fantastical world of "Dungeons and Dragons" and other role-playing games with this instructional activity from The New York Times. Middle schoolers create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own community. Then,...
Beat by Beat Press
Teaching Musical Theatre
The 16 lessons in Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook are designed to help actors enrolled in a theatre arts class develop the skills they need to be successful in musical theatre. Check out this sample lesson to see if you...
Thoughtful Learning
Adjusting Your Writing Voice
"Yo, what's up?" "Nuttin!" While such a dialogue might be appropriate between friends, it would be ill-advised in more formal situations. A mini-lesson asks young writers to consider how to adjust the voice they use to bring their...
Curated OER
Narrative Writing
Binoculars are used as a metaphor for good descriptive writing. Class members first view a small picture and then an enlarged view of the same image in which the details come into focus. Next, learners examine a paragraph lacking sensory...
K20 LEARN
What Do You Want To Talk About? Writing Dialogue
Pictures really do talk in a lesson that teaches young writers how to craft dialogues. Class members closely examine Grant Wood's American Gothic, imagine what the couple might think or feel, and put these words to paper, crafting a...
Curated OER
Writing a Screenplay
It's time to make a movie! Kids follow 15 steps to take their movie ideas from concept to script, following clear examples. The resource includes creative ways to guide learners into developing a few words and concepts into fully...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
“Tell Me a Story”: Moving from Reading to Writing
Narrative essay writing is the focus of a series of exercises that model for learners how to not only read a narrative, but how to also examine the techniques fiction writers use to create a setting, develop their characters, represent...
Scholastic
Super Sentences & Perfect Paragraphs
An extensive collection of lessons and activities includes many writing, grammar, and proofreading exercises. With templates and worksheets that cover several steps in the writing process, from sentence to paragraph to essay, this...
Curated OER
Cross-Cultural Dialogue Lesson
Use the Peace Corps to explore a different place and different perspectives. Your class reads the personal narrative "Cross-Cultural Dialogue" by Roz Wollmering, completing an attached story frame sheet in preparation for a class...
Get Fluent
Get Fluent in French: Going on Holiday
Take a vacation into French with lots of vocabulary and plenty of activities. This collection of worksheets includes instruction as well as practice and invites French language learners to hone their translation skills.
Voices of a People's History
Voices in The Classroom
Everyone's perspective of the past is different. A thought-provoking unit gives young academics the opportunity to explore their perspectives on history and their neighborhoods. Based on the work of Howard Zinn, each lesson explores...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 11: Beginnings
Every good novel needs a solid beginning! Setting the stage can have your budding authors stumped, so use this instructional activity to get them thinking. After examining the plot rollercoaster image (included) they consider the four...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan 17: Novel, Take 2
It's all about using peer resources in this writing process lesson, which includes a fantastic novel revision worksheet packet. Learners have read a partner's story draft the night before, and groups have a "lightning round of praise"...