Overview: "Speak Up!" is an opportunity for students to create a cartoon dialogue featuring two or more characters in a range of settings on a variety of topics. Exploring these topics allows students to consider problems and issues that they might encounter in their own lives. Students can also create their own topics.

Target audience: year 4-6 students; this is an ideal activity for two students to work on together at the computer.

Curriculum links (levels 2 and 3): English: poetic writing, exploring language; Health and Physical Education: Relationships With Other People

Create a Cartoon

Most narratives have an orientation (characters, setting, problem), a problem (what happens between the characters), and a resolution (how the problem is resolved). As the students construct their cartoon by writing dialogue for their chosen characters, encourage them to think about:

• The initial two characters, setting, and topic that they've selected. Are they clear about the differences between the characters and what is going to happen to them in the storyline?
• The dialogue, which can be either spoken or the characters' thoughts or their text or cellphone conversation with another character. Is there a difference between what the characters are saying and what they are thinking? Does spoken language differ from the language used in text messages?
• The situation they develop between the characters, which may involve a disagreement or conflict. Are they clear about the sequence of events?
• How this situation turns out at the end, including how the disagreement or conflict is resolved. Are they clear about how the situation will turn out?

Plan and Write a Narrative

Ask the students to print out their completed cartoon and use it as a plan for an extended piece of narrative writing. To write their narrative, the students will need to include more details, for example:

• some physical and behavioural characteristics of the characters
• the time and place of the setting
• how the situation between the two characters came about
• how the characters deal with the situation and how they resolve it, including a clear outline of the sequence of events.

Write and Present a Play

Ask the students to print out their completed cartoon and use it as material for writing and acting out a play. The students can write up the cartoon dialogue by adopting the format of a play script (after looking at plays in the School Journal for help with this). They will need to include other details characteristic of a play script, such as:

• a title
• a list of characters
• a description of the setting
• stage directions (indicating how characters react and say their dialogue or describing characters' movements)
• sound effects.

Then ask the students to practise their play, reminding them to put lots of expression into how the characters say the dialogue. Get the students to perform their play to others.