Many university writing courses task students with writing a narrative essay, encouraging them to “show” a story rather than “tell” it (French, in press). For nonnative-English-speaking students, this assignment can be an abstract concept with obscure expectations, as students may not know how to write in different genres. In process-approach writing pedagogies, students are not often explicitly taught the linguistic differences between genres of writing (Hyland, 2003); however, with genre-based writing instruction, students are given the tools they need to successfully write according to the linguistic patterns of specific genres (Hyland, 2007).

This lesson combines genre-based pedagogy and communicative language teaching, an approach which emphasizes that language must be contextualized and centered around meaning for target structures to truly be internalized (Duff, 2014). Students can learn more effectively if the information that they are learning is tied to their own experiences, and this lesson aims to accomplish this objective by having students write a narrative-genre paragraph based on an experience in class. This lesson intends to help students write narrative essays by highlighting that the narrative genre is often set apart by its usage of dialogue and sensory details, and that by using these two language elements, students can “show” their stories in an exciting way. It is intended for advanced-level international university students who are assigned to write a narrative essay.

Lesson Objectives

Students will

1. Write using sensory details.
2. Incorporate dialogue into a narrative essay.
3. Use proper punctuation in dialogue.
   
   

Materials/Equipment Needed

Bandana or blindfold, cinnamon stick, mint leaves, cotton ball, clothespin, pine cone, coffee grounds, Velcro (or any other objects that students could describe using sensory words); paper; pens; projector; computer

Warm Up (10 minutes)

• Write “sensory details” on the board. Ask students what it means.

• Write the five senses on the board (i.e., touch, smell, sight, taste, sound).

• Explain that sensory details are often found in narrative essays.

• Write “dialogue” on the board. Ask the students what it means.

• Explain to them that dialogue can help make narrative essays seem more real and entertaining. Dialogue refers to what someone has directly said. Emphasize that narratives are usually written in past tense, but dialogue is usually written in present tense.

• Explain that students will be collecting dialogue to write a narrative about what they do in class today. Show them an example paragraph on the projector:

I was sitting in my English class one day, waiting for class to begin, and my teacher came in and told us, “Today we will learn about how to write narrative essays, such as including sensory details and dialogue.” I immediately felt overwhelmed and uninterested, because it sounded like a lot of boring information. Then, I was surprised because she asked for a volunteer to put on a blue blindfold. She handed one of the students a brown stick of cinnamon and asked the student to describe how it felt and smelled. The student muttered, “The object feels like wood, but it smells too good to be wood.” We all laughed because the student looked kind of embarrassed that he could not see, but the rest of the class could. Once the student took off the bandana, he looked surprised to see what the object was. We passed the cinnamon stick around and it had a wonderful sweet and spicy smell. That day I realized that grammar lessons are not always as boring as I thought.

Activity (30 minutes, 3–4 minutes per speaker)

• Divide students into groups of three. Groups can be made bigger or smaller depending on time constraints. Each group member will have a role. Let students decide among themselves who will have each role (1–2 students as note-takers, 1 writer, and 1 speaker).

• Explain to the class that the speaker from each group will wear a blindfold, be given a mystery object, and have to use sensory details to describe the object. The note-taker will write down quotes from the speaker. The writer will then put the notes into complete sentences at the end of the activity.

• Ask each speaker from the six groups to come to the front of the class one by one to describe their object and try to guess what it is. Keep a list on the board of each object.

• Depending on the confidence and proficiency level of each speaker, it might be necessary to prompt the student to describe the object using the following questions: How does it feel? How does it smell? Can you guess what the object might be?

Instruction (20 minutes)

• Once the students have completed the activity and written their notes, explain the punctuation rules of dialogue using a projector with example sentences. Have the students follow along with the Dialogue Helpful Hints handout (Appendix A). Here are some basic rules; these can be included on the handout:

• Put quotation marks around the dialogue.

• Use a capital letter for the first letter of the sentence.

• If the dialogue is at the end of the sentence, there should be a comma before the opening quotation mark.

• If the dialogue is at the beginning of the sentence, there should be a comma before the closing quotation mark.

• If the dialogue uses a question mark or exclamation point, no matter where the dialogue is in the sentence, it does not need a comma or period.

Assignment (30 minutes)

• Tell students that they will write a short paragraph (3–4 sentences) using dialogue and sensory details to describe what happened in class that day, according to their speaker. Tell them to write the paragraph in past tense, but write the dialogue in present tense. Keep the example paragraph on the projector as a reference.

• Once the speakers have described their objects, the note-taker should tell their group members the sentences that they wrote down from the speaker.

• The writer will write the paragraph down as the group works together to craft their story. The paragraph should be in first person, from the perspective of the writer, not the speaker. Be sure to emphasize that they should use dialogue and sensory details in their paragraphs. Encourage students to use words other than “said” from the list on the handout (Appendix B). Walk around to make sure that everyone in the group is helping.

• Students should hand in their paragraphs at the end of class.

• Once students hand in their paragraphs, provide focused written feedback on the usage of sensory details and dialogue. As a warm-up for the next class, hand students back their paragraphs and review any patterns that might need more explanation. Allow students time to ask questions about the feedback.

Conclusion

I used this lesson plan in my classroom to help my students learn how to use sensory details and dialogue in their narrative essays, and it was quite successful. Not only was it a lesson that was comical and engaging, but all of my students actually had never learned to use these two features of the narrative genre in their writing before. They were able to see how these concepts made narratives more interesting, and the format of the lesson being a shared classroom experience made it memorable and contextualized. After my students turned in their narrative essay drafts, most of them used dialogue and sensory details effectively, which truly made their stories come alive.

References

Duff, P. A. (2014). Communicative language teaching. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. Brinton, & M. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 15–30). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning.

French, S. (in press). The narrative essay. In C. Moder (Ed.), English composition open textbook [Online Textbook]. Stillwater, OK: Oklahoma State University Library ePress.

Hyland, K. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(1), 17–29.

Hyland, K. (2007). Genre pedagogy: Language, literacy, and L2 writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(3), 148–164.

Appendix A. Dialogue Helpful Hints

“My name is Anna,” she said.

She said, “My name is Anna.”

“My name is Anna,” she said, “I am from Oklahoma.”

“Where are you from?” he asked.

He asked, “Where are you from?”

“We are so excited!” we said.

We said, “We are so excited!”

Appendix B. Other Words to Introduce Dialogue

Anna Davis has a BA in Spanish and is an MA student in teaching English as a second language from Oklahoma State University. She has worked as a writing center tutor for native and nonnative speakers of English, and she currently teaches international composition courses at the university level.