Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue

: "Zayd! I just finished the last book in the river tails series (...) what should I read next?" : "Don't worry, Ari, I know JUST the series for you to read next." Zayd needs to retell the important parts of the new series. We can help him by learning about understanding story plots from actions and dialogue. Have you ever heard of the word 'plot' used to describe a story? When someone talks about the plot, they are talking about the events that happen in a story. We get clues about the plot from the ACTIONS and DIALOGUE of the characters. Actions tell us what the characters are DOING... and dialogue tells us what characters are SAYING. We can find actions in the plot by looking for verbs... and look for quotation marks around a chararcter's words to look for dialogue. Knowing the plot helps us make predictions about what will happen. It also helps us to understand and enjoy the story. Let's hear the plot of Zayd's series. : "It starts with Lucas and Kale who team up to defeat a robo-bear that is trying to attack their peaceful town." : "They gear up and run to the town square to defend it." Did Zayd use action or dialogue to talk about the plot? Zayd describes the characters' ACTIONS of gearing up and running towards town. We can use this to make a prediction about what we think might happen next. For example, we might predict that the main characters will defend their town. : "Then Kale goes up to the robo-bear and says 'please stop! the people of this town are kind and don't deserve to be attacked'." Did Zayd use dialogue or action to describe the plot? Yes, there is dialogue when Kale says, 'please stop! the people of this town are kind and don't deserve to be attacked.' We know this is dialogue because of the quotation marks around Kale's words. Sometimes authors include both action AND dialogue in the plot of a story at the same time. : "'So, Lucas turned to the mayor saying 'thank you, mayor Leche for the medal.' but before they could finish, Kale gasped looking off into the sky and saying, 'this isn't over yet.'" Can you find the dialogue in this text? Here, the dialogue is what Lucas says to mayor Leche . Can you also find the action? Here, the verbs turned, saying, gasped, and look tell us the actions of the characters. What can we predict from this? We can predict that the problem isn't over yet, and the series will continue. Before we see how the series might end, let's remember. Today we learned about story plots from actions and dialogue. We learned that the plot of a story includes the events that happen in it... and that we can use the actions and dialogue of characters to help us understand better. Remember, when trying to find the action in a sentence of the plot... look for verbs, or, what the characters DO. And when trying to find the dialogue in a sentence of the plot... look for the quotation marks around the words that a character says. : "Well, what do you think, Ari?" : "Oh! You've already started it!"