Card
Role-Play Conversations
Role-Play Conversations helps students put aside their concerns about their image when having conversations by assigning them roles. Try this strategy to give students practice in using vocabulary and exploring connections in your lesson.
Role-Play Conversations
Summary
No matter your content area, using this strategy can help you build real-world connections by having your students play the part of a professional in that subject. There are many different ways for students to play a role and use academic vocabulary. For example, as two scientists discussing a lab experiment or as two historical figures set during Prohibition. Or students could take on the perspectives of animals in an ecosystem and discuss their interdependence. They could pretend to be chemicals, plants, planets, or anything that enables them to use what they've learned to build a story or conversation about these connections.
Procedure
Present students in groups of three with a prompt such as a problem or scenario.
Assign two students roles to play out related to the prompt. Assign the third student as a scribe.
Provide time for them to act out their roles and discuss the provided prompt.
Have the scribe keep a written record that outlines the conversation. This doesn’t have to be verbatim but should represent the directions taken, responses, topics, and vocabulary that were present in the conversation.
Start talking!
Zwiers, J., and Crawford, M. (2011). Academic conversations: Classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and content understandings. Stenhouse Publishers.
Publisher
Downloads
Placement In Lesson
- Engage/Opening
- Evaluate/Assessment
- Explain/Closing
- Explore/Learning Activity
- Extend/Additional Learning Activity
Intention/Purpose
- Activate Prior Knowledge
- Speak & Listen
- Summarize
- Synthesize
- Vocabulary
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