Who Said It?

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Emphasize that quotation marks wrap around the part a person is saying.
• Remind students of the role commas and capitalization play when using quotation marks.
• Select some dialogue from a story the class is reading.
• Write several sentences from the text’s dialogue on thet board.
• Leave the quotation marks out of the sentences that you write down.
• Demonstrate where and discuss why you would add quotation marks, commas, and capitalization to the sentences.

Guided Practice

• Write down several sentences from a dialogue in a story the class is reading, again leaving out the quotation marks.
• Ask for student volunteers to come up to the board and add quotation marks, commas, and capitalization as needed.
• Discuss student work.

Independent working time

• Tell students they will be practicing the use of quotation marks by creating a cartoon.
• Hand out a piece of white paper to all students.
• Ask students fold their paper in half both ways to create four equal sections.
• Ask students to take a black marker and draw over the folded lines to define sections.
• Tell students to create a cartoon within the four sections. The cartoon should have dialogue bubbles and a conversation between two characters.
• Show a sample of a popular cartoon, such as Charlie Brown, and talk about the dialogue and quotation marks used.
• Have students work independently, and collect their cartoons once they're done.