Speech Marks and Commas

Today we looked at the text called Water the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray as part of our focus on the use of speech marks and the use of dialogue in texts.

There were three levels of difficulty of the passages distributed, mainly in relation to length; all were obviously excerpts from the book with most of the punctuation missing. Students had to punctuate the text they were given individually. They were given ten minutes.

A smaller amount of text

A little more challenging

The most challenging

Once this was completed, they worked through it with a partner, discussing the application of punctuation and making any necessary corrections. 

Comparing and discussing in pairs

Comparing and discussing in pairs

They then made a group of four, discussed the text further and then wrote the text up. 

Then in groups of four, finalizing ideas.

The final write-up

We then went through the three texts using the Smart Board with students each having a section to punctuate on the board, or read out aloud with the new punctuation added, thus demonstrating the importance punctuation has for the reader when reading it aloud with expression and the correct diction. Students were asked to add in anything they missed at this final stage.

The students' work was then collected up and assessed. Students were asked to use different colour pens or pencils at each proof-reading stage so I could determine the level of learning obtained at each given point in this lesson. Some students need to be much more through with their final correction, whilst others had been extremely vigilant and accurate. At the conclusion of the lesson I read students the book which I think they enjoyed.