For teachers
Screenwriting lesson plans: a five‑lesson unit, free
This is the unit I would want if I had to teach screenwriting to a class of fifteen-year-olds next Monday. Five lessons of about fifty minutes take students from "write what the camera sees" to a finished scene that the class hears read aloud. The exercises are ready to copy, the answers are underneath, and there is a rubric at the end. Copy it, print it, change anything you like.
- Ages: 14 and up, first-year university too
- Length: 5 lessons of 50 minutes
- Needs: Google Docs or Word, a projector
- Price: free, no sign-up
- 1. What the camera sees
- 2. The six shapes of a page
- 3. Action lines
- 4. Dialogue and subtext
- 5. Write it, hear it
- Rubric
- Run it in Google Classroom
Printing opens every answer and puts each lesson on its own page.
How the unit is built
Most screenwriting courses start with format, and students spend the first week learning margins for a story they have not written. This unit goes the other way. Lesson one has nothing to do with software: students learn that a screenplay describes only what can be filmed, which is the idea everything else rests on. Format comes second, once they know what it is for. Then the two skills that separate a script from a story told in dialogue: action that an actor can play, and dialogue that does not say what the character means.
By the end, every student has written a two to three page scene, heard other people read it, and revised it. That last step is the one students remember.
Lesson 1
Write only what the camera sees
Goal: students understand that a screenplay is a plan for something filmed, and that one page lasts about one minute on screen.
You need the first three minutes of any short film with little dialogue. Pick one your class has never seen.
- 10 minShow the opening once with sound. Then a second time, and ask students to note everything they see and hear, in order.
- 20 minStudents turn their notes into plain sentences in the present tense. The only rule: write nothing that a camera or a microphone could not record.
- 15 minThree students read theirs aloud. The class stops them at every word that cannot be filmed: "she remembers", "he is nervous", "years ago". Each one gets crossed out or turned into something visible.
- 5 minGive them the rule of thumb: one page of screenplay is about one minute of film. Their three minutes should fill about three pages. Most will have half a page, which is the point of lesson three.
If you want a real script to put next to the film, the short film template page has the full screenplay of a produced short that won awards at Clermont-Ferrand.
Lesson 2
The six shapes of a page
Goal: students recognise and use the six elements of screenplay format.
- 10 minProject the formatted page below and name the six elements: scene heading, action, character, parenthetical, dialogue, transition. Point out that each one always sits in the same column.
- 25 minThe messy page: students turn the paragraph below into a formatted scene in their own copy of the template.
- 15 minThey swap with a neighbour and check each other's page against the checklist, then compare with the answer.
Exercise: the messy page
It's night, inside a laundromat. All the machines are still except one, which thumps. Nadia, who is seventeen, sits on a plastic chair with a school bag on her knees. A man in a wet coat comes in. His name is Mr. Okafor and he is her chemistry teacher. He sees her and stops. He says, "Nadia? It's eleven o'clock." Without looking up, she says, "The machine at home is broken." He looks at the one machine that is running, then at her bag, the only thing she has with her. He says quietly, "That's not a washing load." She says, "No." Then we cut to outside, where the rain is coming down on his car.
The checklist
- The scene heading starts with INT. or EXT., names a place and a time, and is in capitals.
- A character's name is in capitals the first time they appear in the action, with their age.
- The name above each speech is in capitals and spelled the same way every time.
- Dialogue sits in a narrow column, left aligned, never centred.
- "Quietly" and "not looking up" have become parentheticals, in brackets, under the name.
- There is one blank line between elements, never two.
Show the answer
Two things to discuss with the class. "Her chemistry teacher" cannot be filmed, yet it stays: a character's first appearance is the one place where a script is allowed to tell a little. And the scene works because nobody explains why Nadia is there at eleven at night with a school bag. The audience works it out, which is lesson four.
Lesson 3
Action lines: show what we would see
Goal: students turn feelings and facts into things an actor can play and a camera can film.
- 10 minRead the worked example aloud and the three rules below.
- 25 minStudents rewrite the five lines, alone. Two versions of each if they finish early.
- 15 minCollect the best versions of each line on the board. Vote on the one that says the most in the fewest words.
Exercise: five lines to rewrite
- Leo is angry with his brother.
- Maya is nervous about the interview.
- The house has been empty for years.
- Sam has been in love with Jo for months and has never told her.
- Grandma is starting to forget things.
Worked example, line 3:
Three rules for action
- Present tense, always. The film is happening now: "she opens the door", never "she opened" or "she will open".
- Four lines at most per paragraph. A reader's eye skips a block of action. Each new paragraph is roughly a new shot.
- Capitals only for a character's first appearance. Not for emphasis, not for the whole line.
Show possible answers
- Leo sets a plate in front of his brother. Hard enough to crack it.
- In the waiting room, Maya reads the same line of her CV for the fifth time.
- Dust on the piano keys. A calendar still open on March 2019.
- Jo laughs at something on her phone. Sam watches her, and looks away the moment she looks up.
- Grandma pours the tea. Then pours a second cup for someone who isn't there.
There is no single right answer. A good version is one an actor could play without asking you what you meant.
Lesson 4
Dialogue and subtext
Goal: students write dialogue where the characters talk around what they really mean.
- 5 minExplain subtext in one sentence: people rarely say the important thing directly, and good dialogue copies them.
- 25 minIn pairs, students write the one-page scene below.
- 20 minTwo pairs read their scene aloud. The class guesses what the scene is really about.
Exercise: the thing they don't say
Write a one-page scene between two people who talk about something small: whose turn it is to do the dishes, a lost phone charger, what to watch tonight.
Underneath, the scene is about something else, which neither of them names. Choose one: one of them is moving to another city, one of them broke a promise, one of them knows a secret about the other.
The real subject must never appear in the dialogue.
The reading tells you whether it worked. If nobody in the class guesses the real subject, it is buried too deep. If someone guesses it in the first three lines, a character has come too close to saying it. Both are easy to fix, and fixing them is the lesson.
To finish, ask everyone to cross out every "hello", "well", "so" and every time a character calls the other by name. The scene gets shorter and better, and they see it happen.
Lesson 5
Write a scene, then hear it
Goal: students write a complete scene and revise it after hearing it read.
- 30 minStudents write a scene of two to three pages, alone, with the brief below.
- 20 minTable read in groups of three or four. Other students read the parts; the writer only listens, and marks every place where a reader stumbles or the group laughs when it should not.
The brief
- One location.
- Two or three characters.
- One character wants something from another and does not get it, or gets it at a price.
- Something has changed between the first line and the last.
For homework, students revise from their notes, check the format, and hand in a PDF. Before they hand it in, they can run the PDF through the free format checker, which lists the notes a professional reader would write: font size, margins, scene headings, overlong speeches, a character spelled two ways. You will spend your marking time on the story instead of the margins.
Assessment
The rubric
Four criteria, four levels, for the final scene. Score each criterion out of four, which gives a mark out of sixteen.
| Criterion | 4. Professional | 3. Secure | 2. Developing | 1. Beginning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Format | No errors. A reader would not notice the format at all. | Two or three small slips, such as a missing capital or a blank line too many. | Elements are recognisable but often in the wrong place. | The page reads like prose with names in front of the lines. |
| Visual writing | Every line of action can be filmed. Feelings come through what characters do. | Mostly visual, with one or two lines that tell us what someone feels. | Action often explains thoughts or backstory. | Action is a summary of the story, not a description of what we see. |
| Dialogue | Characters sound different from each other and rarely say exactly what they mean. | Natural, with a few lines that state the obvious. | Characters explain the plot to each other. | Dialogue carries the whole scene and nothing happens around it. |
| Scene construction | Someone wants something, meets resistance, and the scene ends changed. | A clear want and a change, with some lines that could be cut. | Something happens, but nothing is at stake. | No want, no change. The scene could start or end anywhere. |
Run it in Google Classroom
The unit works in any word processor. Here is the setup that saves the most time in a school that uses Google.
- Open the free screenplay template and use File, then Make a copy, to put it in your own Drive.
- In Google Classroom, create an assignment, attach your copy, and choose "Make a copy for each student". Every student gets a formatted page with their name on the file, and you see their work as they write.
- For lessons two to five, students can format by hand from the template, or install our extension, which places every line in the right column as they type: Enter after a scene heading goes to action, Tab goes to a character name.
- To hand in, students use File, then Download, then PDF.
If your students are under 18 and use school Google accounts, your Workspace administrator has to allow the extension once before students can sign in to it. It takes a few minutes, and we send the administrator the exact steps. Schools on Microsoft can run the same unit in Word with our Word add-in.
The extension is free for teachers, on every plan, for as long as you teach. Students can write for free with daily limits, which covers this unit. If you want every limit gone for a class, we charge per student, never a site licence.
Who wrote this
I'm Hugo Thomas, a French filmmaker. I have directed two feature films, both on Netflix, and my short films won awards at Clermont-Ferrand. I also make Screenplay Editor, the tool that brings screenplay format into Google Docs and Word, which students in more than a hundred schools already use. This unit is what I would teach if I had five hours with a class. If you run it and change something that works better, I would like to hear about it.
Questions
What age is this unit for?
Fourteen and up. It works as written for high school film, media and English classes, and for a first-year university introduction. With younger students, keep lessons one to three and turn lesson four into a whole-class exercise.
Do students need screenwriting software?
No. Every lesson works in Google Docs or Word with the free template. Software saves time from lesson two onwards, because students stop fighting the margins and think about the scene.
Can I copy and adapt the exercises?
Yes. Print them, translate them, put them in your own slides or your school's course pack. A link back to this page is appreciated, not required.
How long does the unit take?
Five lessons of about fifty minutes, plus one homework to revise the final scene. It stretches well to two weeks if you add a second table read.
Which short film should I show in lesson one?
Any short with a strong opening and little dialogue. Silent openings work best, because students have to describe everything instead of copying lines.
How do I grade the format quickly?
Ask for a PDF and run it through the format checker. It flags the errors in a few seconds, so the rubric's format line takes no time and your comments go to the story.