Talking
Heads
Teacher: Bernadette Lambert, Cobb County School System
Overview:
This engaging activity helps students
process notes from research or an interview and turn the information into
a script or dialogue for narrative, persuasive, or expository text.
Materials:
Several slips or paper. Pen or pencil.
Time:
Approximately 40
minutes.
Instructional
Sequence:
- Lead a discussion
about how dialogue can work effectively in different genres such as
expository, narrative, persuasive, and script. Share examples from published works.
- Tell students they
are going to write dialogue for characters from a story that is familiar
to most of us, Cinderella. Review
the basic storyline.
- Divide
students into six groups. Assign
each group one of the following roles:
- Cinderella trying to convince
her stepmother to let her go to the ball.
- The stepmother explaining to
Cinderella why she can’t go to the ball.
- Cinderella talking to the Prince
during their first dance at the ball.
- The Prince talking to Cinderella
during their first dance at the ball.
- A reporter asking Cinderella
questions about the night she met her Fairy Godmother.
- Cinderella telling a reporter
details about the night she met her Fairy Godmother.
- Give each group
member three to four slips of paper. Instruct students to write one line of dialogue that they think
their character might say in the role assigned.
-
Now pair groups together
(a and b, c and d, e and f), with each group selecting an actor for
the role and the other group members working as scriptwriters. The scriptwriters hand the actors one line
at a time to read as the two actors exchange dialogue. The scriptwriters should choose lines that
make sense in reaction to what has been said, and they may add words
or even entire lines to make the scene cohesive.
The actors must read exactly what is written on the slip of paper
handed to them. “Act” out each
scene.
- Discuss how the
three scenes were different. Which
conversation would work better in an expository piece? In a narrative text? Which was more persuasive? This could lead to a discussion of conflict
or character motivation.
- Repeat
the same activity using characters from student research or interviews. For instance if students have researched the
Trail of Tears, they might write dialogue between Andrew Jackson and
John Ross. The actual dialogue
would be imagined, but based on the information that students learned
during their research.
Evaluation:
Students’ final pieces of writing
must include at least one instance of dialogue.
Depending on the nature of the writing, you might ask for the dialogue
to include examples of conflict, cover specific information, or explain
character motivation.
