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Ines at the Microphone: Showing How a Character Responds

Read an original story about a school poetry slam, study its dialogue, description and pacing, then use those techniques in your own writing.

Grade 5ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toW.5.3.b

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 Common Core standard
Printable answer key
12 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 5
Subject: ELA
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students identify dialogue, description and pacing in a narrative.
Students explain how these techniques show a character's response to a situation.
Students use dialogue, description and slow pacing in their own narrative sentences.

How to use

Read the story together and point out one example of each technique, then let students answer the questions and write their own sentences.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

W.5.3.b

Use narrative techniques such as dialogue, description, and pacing to develop events or show how characters respond to situations.

Preview

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Name Date

Ines at the Microphone: Showing How a Character Responds

Study how dialogue, description and pacing bring a story to life.

Read the story

Read the story. Notice what the characters say, the details the writer describes, and where the story speeds up or slows down.

Ines at the Microphone

1For two weeks, Ines Ortega practiced her poem everywhere. She whispered it on the bus, mumbled it while brushing her teeth, and recited it to her cat, who only yawned. By Friday, she knew every line by heart.

2That night, the school cafeteria became a theater. Someone had hung strings of paper stars above the stage, and folding chairs stood in crooked rows. The air smelled like popcorn and floor wax. Near the front, a row of parents whispered and waved to their kids.

3"You're fourth," said Malik, tapping the list on his clipboard. "Right after the kid with the poem about socks."

4"Fourth," Ines repeated. Her voice came out thin, like air leaking from a balloon.

5"You'll be great," Malik said. "Just breathe."

6The first three poets went by in a blur of rhymes and clapping.

7Then Ms. Adebayo called her name. Ines stood up. Her knees felt like wet noodles. She walked to the microphone one slow step at a time. She gripped the stand and looked out at the rows of faces. Somewhere in the back, a chair squeaked. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out.

8One second passed. Then two. Then three.

9Then she spotted her little brother, Teo, in the second row. He gave her a huge thumbs-up, and a piece of popcorn fell off his shirt. Ines almost laughed. She took a deep breath, the way Malik had told her, and began.

10"My grandmother's hands," she said, "are maps of every place she has been." Her voice shook on the first line, but by the third line it was steady and strong.

11When she finished, the room was silent for a heartbeat. Then the clapping roared like rain on a tin roof. Ines walked back to her seat with warm cheeks and a racing heart.

12"See?" Malik whispered. "You just had to breathe."

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