Talk It out! Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment with Dialogues

Getting all students involved in a class can be a difficult task. Getting students excited about reading, writing, and learning can be an even more difficult task. Fortunately, using dialogues is an easy strategy that any teacher can implement in any grade in any subject area to get students up, moving, and actively engaged in the learning process. Dialogues are essentially two-person plays or skits that students act out in pairs. Each dialogue focuses on a specific topic and introduces key vocabulary terms and concepts in a way that students can understand, using day-to-day conversational language. In addition, all students love using dialogues because they appeal to various interests. The "science-y" students love the content, the lit/drama students love the format, and the class comics love the humor! AND they can be personalized and modified to meet the needs of specific students and educational goals and can be used with other strategies such as exit slips, labs, content review, and more. In short, dialogues are an easy way to create an inclusive classroom where every student is engaged and successful.