Rules of Dialogue

Grade: 4th

Time: 40 Minutes

Standard: Writing Standards: Grade 4: Text Types and Purposes: 3.B.

Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the
responses of characters to situations

Objective: Students will actively listen and look for dialogue as we read-aloud Chicken Little by
Steven Kellogg. Students will determine a few rules of writing dialogue and will be able to
punctuate the appropriate dialogue in a passage from the story.

Materials: Chicken Little by Steven Kellogg

Posters of pages from Chicken Little
Sentence strips
Handouts of pages from Chicken Little
Lesson Sequence: “Girls and boys, as we remember, all good stories have 3 good things to pay
attention to. Do we remember what these 3 things are? Turn and talk to your neighbor about
what you think these 3 things are.” Give them a minute to discuss. “Okay girls and boys, who
can tell me 1 of the 3 things?” Call on students raising their hands- do for all 3. “The 3 good
things good stories have are action, thought and dialogue, today, we are going to focus on
dialogue. Can anyone define dialogue for me?” Call on 2 students. “Okay, I’ll take one more.
Those were some great ideas of what you think dialogue is. Dialogue is a conversation between
two or more people.” Tell them to write the definition of dialogue in their notebooks. “Most
writers use dialogue when writing stories. Today, we are going to learn the rules of dialogue by
reading Chicken Little by Steven Kellogg. While we are reading, I would like you to pay
attention and look for dialogue.” Begin reading. Stop on page when wolf appears and ask the
question to the class, “ Have you been noticing the conversations between the characters while
we are reading, I want you to keep thinking about this as we continue reading.” Then say, “Lets
continue reading (switch readers and start reading)
Teach and Model: “While reading Chicken Little by Steven Kellogg, we noticed a lot of
dialogue between characters. What are you noticing about dialogue in this passage? Turn and
talk to your neighbor about what you are noticing.” Let students discuss. “While you were
discussing what you noticed about dialogue, I heard some great comments. Before we start using
dialogue in our stories, there are a few rules we need to know. One of the most important rules is
putting quotation marks around the character when they speak. Would anyone like to share with
us what a quotation mark is?” Call on one student to come up to the board and draw quotation
marks. Place sentence strip on board, read it, have students copy it in their notebook. “For
example, on this page in Chicken Little, where do you notice this rule?” Call on 3 students and
circle quotation marks as students answer. “Okay, so there is another important rule we have to
be aware of. This rule regards proper punctuation placed inside the quotation marks. Where do
you see this rule being applied?” Call on 3 students and circle proper punctuation. “The last rule
we are going to learn today is that when each character speaks, we must begin a new paragraph.
Where do you notice this rule?” Call on 1 student and circle paragraph.
Guided Practice: “Girls and boys, look at the passage on the board. What are you noticing? Is
there anything missing?” Call on students to come up to the board and fill in missing pieces in
the passage. “We did such a wonderful job filling in the passage with the rules of dialogue”.
Independent Practice: “Now, let’s practice filling in a passage on our own using the rules of
dialogue.” Explain to children we are going to go back to our desks, working independently,
filling out our passages’.
Closure: Call students back to the carpet with their passages they filled out. “Girls and boys, we
are now going to check our work. Can anyone tell me where they wrote the rules of dialogue on
their sheets?” Call on students raising their hands. “Girls and boys, today we learned the rules of
dialogue, and why it is important to follow these rules when using dialogue in a story. Can
anyone remind the class of these 3 rules we learned today?” Call on 1 student. “We did a great
job discussing dialogue today. I am excited to see how you use dialogue in your realistic fiction
stories. Please head back to your seats and get out your math notebook.”
Assessment: I will know if the students were successful if they apply the rules of dialogue in the
Chicken Little passage by Steven Kellogg.