Writing Activity - Specific Word Choice and Tone: "Talk to Me"

Talk, talk, talk. I don’t have any statistics on how much of their lives people talk, but I would imagine that the number is way over 60%, depending on living status, jobs, social activities, etc. Talking alone doesn't result in tears, laughter, hugs or anger, though. 

Word choice, tone, inflection and body language cause these as well as a whole gamut of emotional reactions. All four qualities play a part in what people hear, and as Shakespeare said in Hamlet, “Ay, there’s the rub”.

The rub is often the result of students’ not fully understanding a characters because they misinterpret what they say. They see the words, but don’t hear the tone or get the underlying subtext.

The rub is the result of students not understanding how to properly format direct quotations that show correct capitalization and punctuation.

The rub is teacher concern because their students are not showing the level of critical thinking they need to fully comprehend character.

These Common Core and Bloom’s Taxonomy aligned lessons reinforce previously learned concepts, promote comprehension and instill inductive, deductive, critical and analytic and creative thinking skills orally and in writing. Quote Journals: He Said…She Said is for individual instruction. For this activity, which should be introduced at the beginning of a novel study, students copy down citations and direct quotations that strike an emotional chord in them. Then the student imagines a conversation between him/herself and the character which they write it in proper dialogue format.

Suggestion- if you feel that your students need to work on writing dialogue format correctly, check out Grammar: Banish Those Dialogue Demons https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grammar-Banish-Those-Dialogue-Demons-664964 for a few lessons.

 Acting Out  is for working in pairs.  Each student duo chooses a dialogue to role play.This must be a conversation that increased the tension and that was critical to the final outcome of the story. After that, they create a new one for the same situation, but that shows a different outcome.

Together, the variety of skills embedded in these lessons address visual and auditory learners. The Teacher Notes show that both follow the Show Me, Help Me, Let Me teaching philosophy that I attempt to follow in all of my lessons. 

Teenagers love to talk aloud.  These activities encourage them to write right as they talk on paper.

Download this activity from my store and let the talking begin.

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Activity-Talk-to-Me-673244

Happy Teaching,

TEACH IT WRITE - BUILD POWERFUL ACADEMIC HOMES