Quotation Marks Antics

Throughout the year my students have really strengthened their writing. Their ideas are growing by leaps and bounds, and their grammar, structure, and organization is also improving. The one thing that continues to plague them, even my best writers, is consistently using and formatting dialogue properly. Why is it that students find using quotation marks correctly so difficult? This week I was feeling ambitious, so I decided to tackle it. 

Here are a few activities and things I tried with my kiddos. Feel free to give them a try and let me know how they work out. I also welcome any other ideas you have.

1. I started by telling my kiddos that I wrote a story and wanted their opinion. I displayed the story on the smart board. It was a story that contained lots of dialogue, but no quotations marks or proper punctuation or formatting. They quickly identified what the problem was. As a class, we went through and they edited it together. 
2. Next it was time for some buddy practice and reteaching opportunities for those who needed it. I found a wonderful FREE resource by Kristine Nannini on teacherspayteachers.com. Here's the link to the wonderful resource. Thanks Kristine! It provides great hands-on practice with a little scaffolding built in! As they worked in pairs, I floated around the room and gave assistance as needed, and also pulled a small reteach group for a few friends that were really struggling.
3. Time to apply the skill to writing. I gave students the choice of either working in pairs or working independently. Most chose to work with a friend. I then posted three pictures for students to choose from.
   
   
   
   
 

 

Their assignment was to write a short story that included dialogue between the two animals. I told them that of course it would be funny, but they just needed to be sure to write and format the dialogue correctly. They really enjoyed this activity and came up with some great conversations.

4. Independent Practice: Due to the way our schedule worked out, they ended up doing this part a few days later, so it really was a good indication of how much they remembered and could actually apply the skill in their writing. I posted one more picture, and instructed them to write a story (that included dialogue) based on the picture. They got a real hoot out of the picture and came up with some really creative and truly good stories :) And amazingly, they did a really good job writing their dialogue correctly!

 

Picture credits:Snake & bird- http://www.flickr.com/photos/djphoenix18/3988720849/in/pool-1914019@N23/ Cat & mouse- http://pets.onas.ru/cat_mouse_strawberry_1.jpg.html Ant & Snail- http://www.zmescience.com/science/biology/ant-snail-amazing-picture-27062011/ Jedi Squirrels- http://500px.com/photo/1976424/jedi-squirrels-by-mark-white