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STORY / PLOT / SCREENWRITING SERIES
Rewrite a Movie Ending
Grades 6-12 • Subject areas: English, Art, Media Literacy, Creative Writing, Critical Thinking • Lesson time: 40 minutes
Lesson Overview
Students put their screenwriting skills to work to create a new ending for a popular film. They are challenged to keep the
dialog true to character, and to add their own twists and surprises that the original writers could never have imagined.
Lesson Objectives
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To learn about writing for film, TV, and media.
To explore the written components of popular media formats.
To expand creative thinking and develop a finished created project.
Materials
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TV or projector for watching a film as a class.
Pens and paper.
Starter Discussion
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What makes a good ending for a film?
How are film scripts different than other forms
of creative writing?
Activity
Rewrite a Movie Ending:
You may choose to allow students to work in small groups, or to assign this as an individual
exercise.
Students select a favorite film, or perhaps a film that you’ve watched as a class, and imagine
another way in which that film could have ended, rewriting the last 1-2 scenes from the
selected film. Dialogue should remain true to character, but the plot can take whatever
direction students see fit.
Follow-up Discussion
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Was it difficult to come up with an original
ending?
Do you think you’d like to write a full
screenplay?
What do you think makes a good screenplay?
Follow-up Activities/Homeworks
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Watch a film at home, and then write a journal entry about how critical viewing and
the screenwriting exercises have helped you to see more in a movie (or not).
Using the format and conventions of the screenplay that you practiced in the exercise,
write your own short screenplay. To make this activity more collaborative, students
may perform their original screenplays in small groups for the larger class.
Framework For Assessment
Students may present small group work to the class to demonstrate that they have engaged with the assignment and
grasped the learning goals. You may choose to supplement discussion with a short writing assignment to encourage quieter
students to articulate their experience with the lesson. You may choose to assign formal grades to homeworks or follow-up
activities.
Common Core Standards
in this Lesson
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Filmmaking lessons may provide an entry
point to the Common Core’s framework of
creativity, collaboration, critical thinking,
presentation and demonstration, problem
solving, research and inquiry, and career
readiness.
The Story/Plot/Screenwriting series equips
students to analyze the “extensive range of
print and nonprint texts in media forms old
and new,” as outlined in the Common Core
definition of workplace readiness.