Creating Cause and Effect Skits

Building academic language

Word

• Pass out the cause and effect Vocabulary Cards to each student. Read the student-friendly definitions on the cards and explain how the pictures connect to the words' meanings.
• Present the first set of prepared images out of order. For example, show a picture of a child swimming first. Next, show a picture of the ocean. See if students can figure out which picture is the cause and which picture is the effect.
• Ask students to hold up or point to the Vocabulary Card (cause or effect) they feel best represents the image you show.
• Continue this proces until you've shown the students all the images.
• Explain that examples of cause and effect are around us every day!

Sentence

• Write the words cause and effect on the whiteboard. Draw a line to separate the words into columns. Under the word cause write the following phrase:
  • Because it was raining,
• Use the Vocabulary Cards to reiterate to the students that the cause is when something happens that causes something else to happen as a result. Read the phrase and see if students can figure out the effect of the cause, what happened because it was raining.
• Encourage students to briefly close their eyes to visualize what you did in the beginning of the lesson. Prompt students using active questioning such as, "What was I wearing? What was I holding? What did I say?"
• Allow students to share their answers and encourage a student volunteer to come up to the board to finish the phrase in the column labeled effect. For example, the student may write:
  • Because it was raining, Ms. Brown brought her umbrella and wore a rain jacket to class.
• Ask a student to read the finished sentence aloud.
• Split the students into six groups and pass out the cut out cause and effect strips from the Cause & Effect worksheet and highlighters.
• Write the following example from the worksheet on the board under the appropriate columns (cause and effect):
  • Because Rachel studied, she got an A on her test.
• Explain to students that they will read the cause on the left of their sentence strip and highlight the effect on the right of their sentence strip. Encourage the students to work together as a group to decide on the answer. Remind the students to read the sentence aloud a few times after deciding on the correct effect to check for clarity.
• Allow a few students to share their answers with the rest of the group and collect the completed sentence strips.

Discourse

• Keep the students in their small groups and write the following sentence starters on the board:
  • Because ____, ____.
  • If ____ then ____.
• Use one set of cause and effect images from the word level activity to act out the cause and effect that the images show. For example, use your hands to show wavy water. Next, pretend like you are swimming and having fun in the water, splashing about!
• Finish the sentence starters on the board to show the cause and effect from your skit. For example,
  • Because I'm at the beach, I will swim.
  • If I go to the beach then I will swim.
• Provide students with access to various props and costumes if possible.
• Challenge students to come up with a cause and effect skit together in their small group.
• When students are done creating their skits, call a few groups to the front of the classroom to perform their skits.
• Encourage students who are watching the skit to come up and write two different sentences that connect to the cause and effect from the skit, using the sentence starters for support. Help students edit their sentences to make them accurate.