Punctuation practice: Conversations 1

Transcription

1 Conversations 1 Complete the following punctuation challenges.* 1 Missing punctuation As well as speech marks, there are other ways of using punctuation when you are writing conversations. Read the sentences below. What punctuation mark keeps being left out? Fill in the missing punctuation marks. Monkey Who is he to tell us what to do? Monkey Im going to complain! *TEACHERS NOTE: ANSWERS CAN BE FOUND ON PHOTOCOPIABLE 7, PUNCTUATION PRACTICE: CONVERSATIONS ANSWERS ; IMAGE JULIENGRON/ WORDS EILEEN JONES Lion Deer Tortoise Peacock Seagull Lets all just calm down. Is it true that weve special permission to roam about? Ill just go back to sleep. Whos going to grab my lunch? Whats that he said? 2 Contracting words Conversational text often has apostrophes to make it less formal and more chatty. Apostrophes can push together or contract two words. Look at the sentences on the right. In each sentence, underline the two words the animal could push together (contract) when speaking. Write the informal sentence in the speech bubble, replacing the missing letters with an apostrophe. Deer How is an animal supposed to rush out of the way? Giraffe I have got to stretch my neck sometimes! PHOTOCOPIABLE 1

2 Conversations 1 (cont...) Complete the following punctuation challenges.* Peacock I will protest if I miss my lunch. Lion Everyone knows I am the king here. Ostrich I do not care about running. Giraffe I will still keep my own dish for food. *TEACHERS NOTE: ANSWERS CAN BE FOUND ON PHOTOCOPIABLE 7, PUNCTUATION PRACTICE: CONVERSATIONS ANSWERS ; IMAGE JULIENGRON/ WORDS EILEEN JONES Seagull We are happier than they are today! Crocodile I will be in the pond if he wants to speak to me. Tortoise I did not know about the rules. PHOTOCOPIABLE 2

3 Conversations 2 *TEACHERS NOTE: ANSWERS CAN BE FOUND ON PHOTOCOPIABLE 7, PUNCTUATION PRACTICE: CONVERSATIONS ANSWERS ; IMAGE JULIENGRON/ SCREEN SHOT REPRINTED BY PERMISSION FROM MICROSOFT CORPORATION; WORDS EILEEN JONES Imagine that you are a newspaper cartoonist. You have just received this from your Editor. It has instructions for creating a cartoon containing conversation for tomorrow s newspaper. Follow the instructions and create a cartoon strip for The Safari Park Gazette.* The Safari Park Gazette Editor Cartoonist WANTED: A cartoon conversation page Animals to be used: Elephant, lion, zebra, monkey, tortoise, deer, giraffe, ostrich, python. What the animals say: Elephant He had better stop trying to take charge! Lion It is a fact that I am the king here. Zebra What is all the fuss about? Monkey I shall not do what he says! Tortoise If the palm tree goes, we will lose its shade. Deer If a car comes, it is not my job to get out of its way! Giraffe How is a tree supposed to eat its own leaves? Python Let us get out of the cage while its door is open! SPECIAL NOTE: Make the animals language less formal by making contractions in sentences. Take care to place the apostrophes correctly our readers will pick up mistakes! PHOTOCOPIABLE 3

4 Teachers notes: Punctuation practice Who said what? The answers to these activities can be found on Photocopiable 7, Punctuation practice: Conversations answers. Read out the following text to accompany the activity Pop-up punctuation on pages of Junior Ed PLUS, August 09. The lion announced, This is a meeting to discuss the keeper s behaviour. What behaviour s that? asked the giraffe. You never notice anything! snapped the crocodile. Her head s too high up in the clouds! joked the monkey. Order! shouted the lion. Who s got a good idea for stopping these announcements? We ll go on strike for a day, suggested the elephant. Let s refuse to smile at visitors, offered the crocodile. I m not sure, said the giraffe. Suits me, mumbled the tortoise. It d certainly make the keeper think, said the elephant. It ll give me more sleep, said the tortoise. It ll be fun! exclaimed the monkey. Reuse the text above for the activity Punctuation for paragraphs on pages of Junior Ed PLUS, August 09. Afterwards, cut up and hand out copies of either of the sections below for your class to complete. The Park rangers (less able) activity challenges children to fi ll in the missing speech marks. The Park keepers (more able) activity invites children to fi ll in all the missing punctuation marks. Park rangers Fill in the missing speech marks in the conversational text below. IMAGE JULIENGRON/ WORDS EILEEN JONES The lion announced, This is a meeting to discuss the keeper s behaviour. What behaviour s that? asked the giraffe. You never notice anything! snapped the crocodile. Her head s too high up in the clouds! joked the monkey. Order! shouted the lion. Who s got a good idea for stopping these announcements? We ll go on strike for a day, suggested the elephant. Let s refuse to smile at visitors, offered the crocodile. I m not sure, said the giraffe. Suits me, mumbled the tortoise. It d certainly make the keeper think, said the elephant. It ll give me more sleep, said the tortoise. It ll be fun! exclaimed the monkey. Park keepers Fill in all of the missing punctuation marks in the conversational text below. The lion announced This is a meeting to discuss the keepers behaviour What behaviours that asked the giraffe You never notice anything snapped the crocodile Her heads too high up in the clouds joked the monkey Order shouted the lion Whos got a good idea for stopping these announcements Well go on strike for a day suggested the elephant Lets refuse to smile at visitors offered the crocodile Im not sure said the giraffe Suits me mumbled the tortoise Itd certainly make the keeper think said the elephant Itll give me more sleep said the tortoise Itll be fun exclaimed the monkey PHOTOCOPIABLE 4

5 Teachers notes: Punctuation practice Cracking conversations IMAGE JULIENGRON/ WORDS EILEEN JONES The following activities can be used to either introduce or consolidate children s work on punctuation in conversational text. 1 Visitors comments Make the link between written conversation and real speech. Display the Poster, Punctuation Safari Park and set the scenario: the children are visitors who have just come out of the park. They are bursting to tell people all about it! Encourage small-group conversations before everyone records their comments in writing. Emphasise the need to write inside a clearly-outlined speech bubble. That way, other readers will recognise the words as what someone actually said. You could display the views on a Visitors comments board. 2 Who said that? Refer to the comments on the Visitors comments board (see above). Point out that sometimes readers need to know who said what. Ask: What additional words are needed? Prompt answers such as: Matt said and write this along with one of the speech bubble comments from the Visitors comments board on your interactive whiteboard. Suggest that speech marks do the same job as the speech bubble: they enclose the spoken words and accompanying punctuation (you could delete most of the speech bubble around the spoken text and just leave two fragments in the place of speech marks to illustrate this point). Place name labels next to some of the remaining comments on the Visitors comments board for the children to write similar sentences. More able children could be encouraged to vary their sentence construction, for example: Matt said: This is a brilliant place! (a colon instead of a comma to introduce the speech); I shall come again, said Lucy. (non-spoken words following the direct speech); If you have any sense, said Sasha, you ll visit tomorrow! (spoken words interrupted by the words saying who is speaking). Emphasise the need for a division, usually a comma, between adjacent spoken and unspoken words. 3 Capital idea Remind the children that a sentence s fi rst spoken word always begins with a capital letter. Write a series of sentences on the whiteboard. (For example: the seagull says, see you later. ) Each time, deliberately omit two capital letters. Challenge partners to identify the words and write one each (beginning with a capital letter) on their individual whiteboard. Use these sentences: what are those two talking about? asked john, the head keeper. the monkey called out, it s a private conversation! we don t want any protest meetings on a busy monday, said the keeper, anxiously. the lion said, we are having a calm discussion. the tortoise whispered is there a problem? the crocodile snapped rudely, go back to sleep! More able children could tackle further sentences without you disclosing how many capital letters are needed. For example: meeting or no meeting, said john, the head keeper, our visitors need your attention. (2) well, said the monkey, we need to talk! (1) would this afternoon be better? asked the lion. we can postpone our chat. (2) the problem is, said john, the park stays open until 7pm on thursdays. (3) in that case, replied the lion, this meeting is postponed until friday. (2) hurray! said the tortoise. my friends and i can have an extra long sleep. (3) if that tortoise was awake a bit more, commented the elephant, he d know what was happening in this park. (1) 4 Keeping things separate Suggest that conversational texts can contain a surprising number of commas. Can partners tell each other why? What special job can a comma do? (It can separate spoken and non-spoken text.) Display the fi rst part of this conversation on the whiteboard: Right, it s time for my swing, said the youngest monkey. PHOTOCOPIABLE 5

6 Teachers notes: Punctuation practice Cracking conversations (cont...) *TEACHERS NOTE: ANSWERS CAN BE FOUND ON PHOTOCOPIABLE 7, PUNCTUATION PRACTICE: CONVERSATIONS ANSWERS ; IMAGE JULIENGRON/ WORDS EILEEN JONES Can the children spot where a comma is doing its usual job of marking a pause? (Right,) Where is it doing its special job of separating spoken and non-spoken words? (swing,) Display the rest of the conversation: Not now! exclaimed his mother. The keeper is coming to visit us. Why does that matter? pestered her son. I always have a swing at this time. Which punctuation marks now do the special job of keeping spoken and non-spoken words apart? (! and?) Let the children continue writing this conversation. More able and older children could then write a second conversation. Can partners fi nd any places where they have forgotten to add punctuation to separate out conversational text? 5 Its or it s You could also focus on the second function of an apostrophe this month. Give each child ten blank cards and put the children into pairs. Ask them to fi nd ten contractions in a current reading book, one partner copying the contraction, the other writing its full form. Suggest shuffl ing their 20 cards before exchanging packs with another pair of children. How long does it take partners to sort their new cards into matching pairs? Let them try out the contractions in an oral conversation and a written conversation. Encourage partner discussion of it s? What is it often confused with? ( its ) Can partners explain the difference to each other? ( it s is the contraction of it is ; its, without an apostrophe, is the possessive adjective meaning belonging to it.) Give everyone two cards, one featuring it s and one its. Put the children into pairs to hold an animal conversation including it s and its. Can their listening partner hold up the correct form? Extend the work for more able children by giving them the text below to fi ll each blank with it s or its. (Answers are available on Photocopiable 7, Conversations answers.) a good science project, reported Alex. all about an animal and own group. class. Do you know animals are in sets? A set of animals has usually possible to work out which goes where. The monkey s easy: a mammal, so group includes human beings. The python has scaly, dry skin so a reptile. Even a small sparrow has group: birds. diffi cult to identify some birds, but their feathers that help me. A bird s size, colour and beak shape also help. As for skeletons, really weird with some animals. A mouse s skeleton is under skin, but a spider has skeleton on the outside of body! As for a worm, skeleton is made of water. At least, I think water that the keeper said! PHOTOCOPIABLE 6

7 Conversations answers Photocopiables 1 and 2 Monkey I m going to complain! Lion Let s all just calm down. Deer Is it true that we ve special permission to roam about? Tortoise I ll just go back to sleep. Peacock Who s going to grab my lunch? Seagull What s that he said? Monkey Who s he to tell us what to do? Deer How s an animal supposed to rush out of the way? Giraffe I ve got to stretch my neck sometimes! Peacock I ll protest if I miss my lunch. Ostrich I don t care about running. Seagull We re happier than they are today! Crocodile I ll be in the pond if he wants to speak to me. Lion Everyone knows I m the king here. Giraffe I ll still keep my own dish for food. Tortoise I didn t know about the rules. Photocopiable 3 (both Park keepers and Park rangers answers shown) The lion announced, This is a meeting to discuss the keeper s behaviour. What behaviour s that? asked the giraffe. You never notice anything! snapped the crocodile. Her head s too high up in the clouds! joked the monkey. Order! shouted the lion. Who s got a good idea for stopping these announcements? We ll go on strike for a day, suggested the elephant. Let s refuse to smile at visitors, offered the crocodile. I m not sure, said the giraffe. Suits me, mumbled the tortoise. It d certainly make the keeper think, said the elephant. It ll give me more sleep, said the tortoise. It ll be fun! exclaimed the monkey. Photocopiable 6 IMAGE JULIENGRON/ WORDS EILEEN JONES Photocopiable 3 Elephant He d better stop trying to take charge! Lion It s a fact that I m the king here. Zebra What s all the fuss about? Monkey I shan t do what he says! Tortoise If the palm tree goes, we ll lose its shade. Deer If a car comes, it s not my job to get out of its way! Giraffe How s a tree supposed to eat its own leaves? Python Let s get out of the cage while its door is open! It s a good science project, reported Alex. It s all about an animal and its class. Do you know animals are in sets? A set of animals has its own group. It s usually possible to work out which goes where. The monkey s easy: it s a mammal, so its group includes human beings. The python has its scaly, dry skin so it s a reptile. Even a small sparrow has its group: birds. It s diffi cult to identify some birds, but it s their feathers that help me. A bird s size, its colour and its beak shape also help. As for skeletons, it s really weird with some animals. A mouse s skeleton is under its skin, but a spider has its skeleton on the outside of its body! As for a worm, its skeleton is made of water. At least, I think it s water that the keeper said! PHOTOCOPIABLE 7