• Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • English language-learner books
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript Critiques
  • About Me
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Patricia NewmanPatricia Newman
Sibert Honor Children's Book Author & Environmentalist
  • Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • English language-learner books
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript Critiques
  • About Me
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Inspiring Kids to Write Meaty Dialogue

Inspiring Kids to Write Meaty Dialogue

January 29, 2010 School Visits, Speaking engagements, The Process 1 Comment

If you are a teacher or have ever judged a kids’ writing contest, you know kids do not write the most thrilling dialogue. Okay…usually it’s downright awful.

In a recent school visit to Carriage Elementary in Citrus Heights, CA, I conducted a dialogue writing workshop with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. When I’ve conducted this workshop in the past, the kids wrote their own individual scenes, but with a nudge from my writing pal and co-Regional Advisor for SCBWI, Erin Dealey (@erindealey on Twitter), I morphed the workshop into a group project.
As writers and teachers, we all know dialogue serves several purposes, but for the workshop I focused on one–moving the plot forward. To start the workshop, I read a few lines of dialogue from some of my favorite books to illustrate how dialogue can move the plot.The students and I brainstormed topics on which we could write a scene between two people in conflict. The Carriage students and I worked together for about an hour proposing and rejecting lines of dialogue for our scenario. At the end, several pairs of volunteers acted out the scene–garnering lots of laughs!
Tags: School Visits
1 Comment
Share
0

You also might be interested in

Dewey Fundamental School, Fair Oaks, CA

Dewey Fundamental School, Fair Oaks, CA

Mar 24, 2008

“Revision is not torture” is the message I tried to[...]

South Seneca Central School, Ithaca, New York

Nov 14, 2007

Reading to children is always fun, but I had the[...]

Ottomon Elementary School

Ottomon Elementary School

Mar 1, 2007

A huge thank you to the students and teachers at[...]

1 Comment

Leave your reply.
  • Sliding on the Edge
    · Reply

    February 5, 2010 at 8:31 PM

    What a great idea for engaging young writers. I love that they enacted the rolls.

Leave a Reply

Your email is safe with me.
Cancel Reply

LitLinks delivered to your inbox

SIGN UP

Author Visits

https://youtu.be/ziN0UrqaDYI

Post Categories:

Blog Archive

Top Posts

LitLinks: How to share our ocean connections with kids and teens

LitLinks: Let’s learn to decode photos in STEM nonfiction

LitLinks: How Elephants Can Make Your Sound Unit ROAR!

LitLinks: Easy ways to build students’ science communication skills

Proof that science connects kids to the larger world

Recent Comments

  • Patricia Newman on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science Thank you for putting the A in STEM, Annie!
  • Annie Lynn on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science As usual, this was a fantastic, helpful, detailed post that…
  • Cynthia Argentine on LitLinks: #KidsLoveNonfiction – Tell the New York Times you want best-seller lists for children’s nonfiction Adding children’s nonfiction categories to the NYT lists would be…

I also write for STEM Tuesday

STEM Tuesday
Empowering young readers to act

Latest Blog Posts

  • LitLinks: The most popular STEAM posts for summer fun
    LitLinks: The most popular STEAM posts for summer fun
  • LitLinks: The secrets of the bristlecone
    LitLinks: The secrets of the bristlecone

What's happening on Twitter

  •  @LindaZajac  Congrats Linda!
  • 12 hours ago
  •  @EastWestLit   @ErinDealey   @AuthorKarenK   @PublishersLunch  Hurrah!!!
  • 12 hours ago

Follow @PatriciaNewman

Action Shots

Check out the STEM Tuesday Blog

© 2022 — Patricia Newman

  • Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • English language-learner books
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript Critiques
  • About Me
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Prev Next