Dialogue and the Use of Said 1) Envisioned Situation: I envision this mini-lesson in a fourth or fifth grade classroom.

This mini-lesson could be taught at any time of the year in which a majority of the students are doing writing that has dialogue in it. Although the use of dialogue is not specifically mentioned in an SOL Standard until SOL 5.8 e) Use quotation marks with dialogue, this lesson also connects to SOL Standard 4.7 i) Utilize elements of style, including word choice and sentence variation. This lesson would be most useful to students in the revising stages of writing, when they have written a piece that has a lot of dialogue in it. 2) Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to provide students with alternative words to use instead of said. It will give their language more variety, and help them better describe to readers how their dialogue is intended to be expressed. 3) Materials: SMART Board Presentation Synonyms for said handout Variety of picture books with lots of dialogue in it 4) Content: Students would arrange themselves in groups of three or four for this lesson. I would start the mini lesson by reading to students the first slide on the presentation (It would not yet be projected on the board). Id have students raise a hand every time they heard the word said. After reading I would ask students if their arms had gotten tired raising it so much in the hopes that they would say yes. I would then turn on the SMART Board so they could see how many times the composition used said (perhaps circling each time said is used to make the point). I would then tell them that we are going to put said to bed because there are so many other descriptive synonyms that we could use in writing to express how people are saying things. We would continue through the presentation. I would then ask students to flip through the picture books they have in their groups to see what authors have used in place of said. Students would write down some of the examples they find on their handout, or circle the word if it is already on the handout. Then we would come back as a whole group and share what was found, and write some of the example on the board. 5) Techniques Used: Whole group instruction SMART Board Small group collaborative work