Saturday, October 11, 2008

Quotation Marks



"Oh my gosh! I heard Miss E is teaching quotation marks." Sarah exclaimed to Doug.
Doug asked, "Well, they are learning how to add details to their writings and Miss E always says to write EVERYTHING."
"There are a lot of rules though," Sarah said,"I think I better practice."


Yes, this is true. This week the boys and girls learned about quotation marks and talking tags. We discussed how quotation marks show readers when a character is talking. The actual words that are spoken need to be surrounded by quotation marks. Also, we learned that talking tags (She said, he stated, Miss Evanko whispered) tells us who/how the person is talking. Learning how and when to use them is so important because it will help them understand stories they read and they will use dialogue more in their writing. As we investigated in books we discovered the rules to using quotation marks. Here are some the rules:


Quotation Mark Rules
-Use a capital letter with the first word when the talking tag is first. She said, “Where are we going?”
-Do not use a capital letter if the quote is first and the talking tag isn’t a proper noun. “Let’s hurry!” she said.
-Do not use a capital letter with the first word if the talking tag interrupts and continues later in the sentence. “I love to go biking?” Tommy told his mom, “can we go now?”
-Use a comma to introduce a quotation after a talking tag.
-Begin a new paragraph each time a new character is talking.
-Put punctuation mark before the quotation mark when ending your sentence.
-Use one set of quotation marks even if the person talking says more than one sentence. “I brought my folder. I thought I left it at home,” I told my teacher.
You do not need quotation marks with indirect quotations. It often begins with the word that. Bob said that he was thirsty.

If you child is confused, don't panic! There are quite a few rules to using this tricky marks. Below is a great site to help them practice looking for where to add quotes, capitals, and commas.

http://edhelper.com/Quotation_Marks.htm


"I'll see you on Monday!" Miss Evanko told all of her Blogger friends.

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