Teaching Points - Writing Dialogue: Part 2

Once students learn the basics of writing dialogue (Writing Dialogue: Part 1), it's time to kick their writing up a notch by teaching students how to write action tags. An action tag shows movement.

This example shows a dialogue tag: "I don't want to go right now," said Adele.

A dialogue tag tells the reader who is speaking. An action tag tells the reader who is speaking (or allows the reader to infer), but shows the speaker's movements.

This is an example of an action tag: "I don't want to go right now." Adele twisted her hair around her finger, pressed her lips together, and plopped down on the couch.

In the action tag, Adele's movements shows the reader through movement her feelings and attitude. You also learn a little about her habits (twisting her hair around her finger). These small movements brings your character to life. You could also have Adele run up the stairs and slam her bedroom door, or plop on the couch and turn on the TV. The movement should show the reader something new about the character and move the story forward to the next moment.

You can follow up an action tag with internal thoughts of the character. The character can think about their feelings, show the reader what they see in their surroundings, think about another character, or what they might do next to solve their problem. Everything the character does and thinks should help move the story forward.

The best way to learn how to write action tags is to study how authors do it. Find examples in children's literature (middle grade or young adult) to study and analyze. Once students deconstruct several examples they should practice writing their own action tags.

Teaching Points - Writing Dialogue: Part 1

Students love to write dialogue in their stories. Writing effective dialogue is not easy -ask any author. Writing dialogue is hard work, and requires some basic know-how. 

There are a couple of rules student writers need to know: 

(1) Dialogue should move the story forward. In other words, the reader should learn something new about the characters, setting, and / or plot based on the dialogue. Dialogue should feel like real conversation without sounding as if the characters are blabbing just to blab. 

(2) Dialogue must be correctly punctuated. 

Teaching dialogue comes in two parts: craft and mechanics. Let's start with mechanics. We teach students to use open and closed quotation marks to show that a character is speaking. 

For example: "I want to read a book," said Lindsey.

We know that Lindsey is talking because we used the dialogue tag said Lindsey. A dialogue tag tells the reader who is talking (said, asked, whispered, screamed). We know what Lindsey says because we put quotation marks around the words she speaks. The example is one complete sentence. A comma goes after book before the closing quotations. The period comes at the end of the sentence (after Lindsey). 

A word about SAID. In an effort to get kids to use a range of vocabulary teachers began creating lists of other ways to say said. In truth (and you can verify this in dozens of grown-up books on writing), the best way to say said is to say said. Readers read right past the word said. The use of a variety of different ways to say said within a piece of writing can interfere with reading. Occasionally it might be necessary to use whispered or screamed, but for the most part, said is more than just acceptable, it is best.

Once students learn the basic mechanics of simple dialogue they can go forth and conquer dialogue as a central part of storytelling. One of the best ways to learn dialogue is to read and analyze examples from published literature. 

I will post Writing Dialogue: Part 2 in a few days. In the next segment I will discuss writing dialogue using action tags. 

DIALOGUE IN FICTION POWERPOINT

PUNCTUATION IN DIALOGUE POWERPOINT

And the Winner is...

Congratulations to Amanda Nickerson! Your name was drawn as the winner for a $10 Teachers Pay Teachers gift card. Feel free to use your gift card in my TPT shop (wink). Actually, you can use it for any products on TPT. 


Stay tuned for another great contest in March! 

Now Accepting Lesson Plan & Article Submissions

Do you have a great lesson plan you would like to share with other teachers? I am taking lesson plan submissions (subject to approval) to place on Effective Teaching Solutions website. Submit Your Lesson Plan


Would you like to write a teaching article to share with other teachers? I am taking article submissions (subject to approval) to place on Effective Teaching Solutions website (or to use as a guest blog article or newsletter article). I cannot compensate authors at this time, however, I am happy to include links to your website, blog, or book. Submit Your Teaching Article

Valentine's Day Contest

After my first successful contest, I've decided to hold a new contest each month. This month you can win a $10 gift card to Teachers Pay Teachers. 


How to Enter:
Addendum: 2/15/11 - I'm drawing at 7 p.m. tonight. It's not too late to enter. The more the merrier!


1. On Valentine's Day read an article on Effective Teaching Articles blog and leave a thoughtful comment.
2. Fill out the ENTRY FORM (after you leave your comment).


On February 15, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. Central time I will draw a name and notify the winner on the blog and by email. You must be able to confirm your email address before I send the gift card (by email).

Don't Feed the Children

Teachers work hard. We plan the lessons, select the texts, write the questions, and prepare the materials. If we are lucky we do this during our conference period, but more often than not, we do this work on our own time. I am certain you are thinking all of this is part of the job, and well, yes, it is.

But -if we are doing all of the work, who is doing the learning? I must say that I've grown as a reader and writer since I've begun teaching. I'm much better at inferring and using context clues. In fact, I'll confess: I had no idea what a context clue was when I first began. To my embarrassment I recall a teacher leaning towards me (on my first day of my first inservice) to say, "I hope you have some new ideas for teaching context clues." I smiled and nodded my head, but inside, I was panicking. I didn't have a clue. But I learned. I learned fast.

Years later: I know what a context clue is, how to infer and draw conclusions, where to search for text evidence, how to discern the theme of a text, and yada yada yada. I've worked really hard to read a variety of texts, analyze those texts, write about them and discuss them. I've come up with fantastic questions asking students to infer, but in truth, I've already done the work.

Yes, I've been feeding the children.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to hear Dr. John O'Flahaven speak. He has done quite a bit of research looking at how much we step in rather than step out. He argued that we as teachers are doing all of the work, all of the thinking, but our goal should be for our students to do the work and the thinking. He made some good points, and got me to thinking.

Take a look at your classroom walls. How many items on the walls were purchased? Provided? Created by you? Created in a shared context (anchor charts -essentially created by you)? Created by the students? This is something to think about. Who is doing the creating; the constructing of knowledge? Who is engaging in discourse? Are you the master of the discussion? Or are your students thinking critically and engaging in thoughtful discourse?

What happens when we allow the students to choose, analyze, question, lead the discussion, construct knowledge, and create? We want our students to think critically and make wise decisions, but will they reach this goal if we are constantly spoon feeding them?

I do not have the answers today. I only have questions to ponder and discuss. I would like to open up this discussion to public discourse. Please feel free to post your comments.