Lesson video

Hello and welcome, I'm Mrs Bailey.

This lesson is about varying your punctuation and dialogue tags when writing direct speech.

For today's lesson, you will need a pen and some paper, you will also need to make sure that your brain is switched on.

Before we begin, just take a moment to ensure that you have removed any potential distractions, for example, your mobile phone, you could turn your phone off or you could put sound silent and puts it away, perhaps in a drawer.

Before we start the main tasks, I'm just going to run you through what we are going to do, in the lesson today.

First of all, we are going to recap on last lessons learning.

We are going to remind ourselves of what we mean by direct speech.

Then we are going to look at how we can vary our end punctuation in direct speech.

We don't just have to use full stops before our close inverted commas.

We will then look at varying our dialogue tags for effect.

We will then look at how to move dialogue tags they don't always have to be at the start of a sentence.

And finally, you will do your exit quiz.

Fantastic, let's get started.

Recapping on direct speech.

Okay, which of the following contains direct speech? As in an extension task, you could think about how you know, how do you know and see if you can recall some of those rules from last lesson.

So which of the following contains direct speech? Is it A, Martha said not to worry about that.

B, Martha told me that I shouldn't worry or C, Martha said, "Don't worry." So pause the video now and write down the answer, A, B or C.

Well, absolutely fantastic if you said C well done.

We can see that Martha's exact words have been used in the sentence.

"Don't worry." Those were her exact words, and this is direct speech.

Let's remind ourselves of what direct speech is.

Direct speech is the reporting of by repeating the exact words of a character or speaker.

For example, Ben said, "I'm hungry." Because these are the exact words used by Ben, he actually said, "I'm hungry." We know that this is direct speech.

And because these are the exact words he used, the writer has put inverted commas around those words, "I'm hungry." Some people call these speech marks and that's absolutely fine.

I will be calling them inverted commas in our lessons.

In direct speech.

Indirect speech is when the speech of a character or speaker is reported, but their exact words are not used.

For example, Ben said that he was hungry.

Well, Ben didn't actually say the words he was hungry, so this is not direct speech, this is indirect speech.

And because of this, the writer has not used any inverted commas.

How do we punctuate direct speech, and what are the different parts can you remember? Let's read the sentence first, Martha said, "Don't worry." The first part, the bit that says Martha said, is what we call a dialogue tag the dialogue tags tells us who said it.

Well, Martha said it so I dialogue tag is Martha said.

After the dialogue tag, we put in a comma, the comma comes after the dialogue tag and before the open inverted commas.

As I said earlier, some people call these open speech marks, but we will call them open and inverted commas.

So dialogue tag, comma, open inverted commas what needs to come next? Well, the exact words that were said, the direct speech, don't worry, but do watch out for this next bit.

This is a bit that many, many people find really hard to remember.

Before we close the inverted commas, we must remember to put a punctuation mark in.

So we need a full stop and that full stop comes before, not after the inverted commas it's really important to remember that.

And so finally, yeah, that we put in the close inverted commas.

Okay students, it is checkpoint time.

Which of the following statements is incorrect, A, B or C.

So I'm going to read some statements to you and you have to think, is that correct or incorrect? And then I'll give you some time to write down your answer.

Is it A, if the sentence starts with a dialogue tag, you need to put a comma after it.

The comma comes before the open inverted commas.

So think about that, is that correct or is it incorrect? Now let's look at B, you do not need to include an end punctuation mark before you close the inverted commas.

So that is saying that you don't need to include a full stop before you close your inverted commas.

Do you think that is correct or incorrect? Now let's look at the third and final statement.

C says, you must include your end punctuation mark before you close your inverted commas.

So C and B is saying the opposite that, B you're saying that you don't need to put a full stop before inverted commas your final inverted commas, and C is saying that you have to do that.

So what I would like you to do, I would like you to pause your video, read each of those statements again, and tell me which one is wrong, which one is telling you the wrong information and write that letter down.

Absolutely fantastic if you wrote down B.

B is giving you false information by saying that you don't need to include a full stop before your close inverted commas that is giving you wrong information.

Varying your punctuation marks in direct speech.

As with any other sentence, you can vary your end punctuation.

When you are writing a sentence of direct speech.

What is end punctuation? I hear you say, well this is the punctuation that we put at the end of a graphical sentence so a full stop, a question mark, or an exclamation mark.

So we can vary our end punctuation, when we are ending a sentence of direct speech to, have a look at the example, Gary said, "Look, what you've done!" Notice that the writer has used an exclamation mark, instead of a full stop.

Notice also that this is placed, just before the close in inverted commas, just like you would do with a full stop.

So here the writer has used an exclamation to convey Gary's mood.

We can infer that Gary is feeling angry about something.

"Look what you've done!" Here's another example, here, the writer has used a rhetorical question to convey Kai's mood.

Kai said, "why me?" We can infer, that Kai is feeling sad or dejected.

Notice how the writer has put the question mark, just before the close inverted commas.

Okay, it's time for a task.

And each picture, somebody is saying something.

On your piece of paper for each picture, I would like you to write down who it was that says something, followed by what they said.

So I'd like you to number one to three and write out three separate sentences, the first one has been started for you.

Amira said comma, so what would you write next? I would like you to pause the video and complete this task now.

Fantastic students, very, very well done.

Does your work look like this? Have you followed the order of punctuation shown at the bottom of the slide? Pause the video and mark your work now.

And don't worry if you've made mistakes that's how we learn best by making mistakes and learning from them.

Pause the video and mark your work now.

Varying your dialogue tags for effect.

What is a dialogue tag? A dialogue tag is a group of words, that either introduce or follow direct speech.

Dialogue tags, identify who spoke and how they spoke.

For example, Tara muttered, "I am doing my work." The dialogue tag is Tara muttered.

The writer could have written, Tara said Tara said, it is a dialogue tag, but the writer has opted for something more descriptive, the writer's opted for a more descriptive verb said, doesn't really show as much about Tara's mood, but from muttered, we can infer that Tara is, feeling really annoyed or fed up about something.

So who spoke is Tara, how they spoke muttered.

So after you do a bit of a fun task, really, I would like you to change the verbs in the dialogue tags below, to show us how the characters is speaking.

Try to convey the mood and meaning that has been indicated in the brackets.

Let me give you an example, so Tara said, "I am trying to concentrate." I've been told that I need to show that Tara is feeling irritated so I have rewritten the sentence with the new dialogue tag.

I've changed the verb from said to snapped to show that she is irritated.

I would like you to pause the video and to complete this task now.

Fantastic students, I hope you had lots of fun with that.

Now, as this was a creative task, there are many, many possible analysis so please don't worry, if you don't see your answer on the screen.

It's very likely that the words you have chosen are far better than mine.

So for excited, I have chosen exclaimed, Amir exclaimed, "I'd love to go ice skating!" For panicking I've chosen whimpered, which implies that Simi is sort of sobbing and panicking.

And for trying to be quiet, I have chosen whispered.

Fantastic.

Are you happy with your choices? I'm sure they are fantastic.

Well done for demonstrating your ability to vary your dialogue tags for a fact.

Okay, it's checkpoint time again.

Which each of the following is not an example of a dialogue tag? Now this is a bit tricky this one, pause your video, have a look and then think about that and write down your answer.

So the answer is C, Raphael tiptoed, is not an example of a dialogue tag.

Now don't worry if you didn't get that right, I'm going to explain it in a bit more detail.

Now, the reason for that, is that A, B and D could all work is dialogue tags, Nadia, exclaimed, "I love cheese," Tom shouted, "I love cheese," Sarah bellowed, "I love cheese." I don't know why Sarah would bellowed that sentence, shouting it out as a deep roar, but it works grammatically.

Raphael, however, can't tiptoe, "I love cheese." I'm just using I love cheese as an example of direct speech.

Tiptoeing is not a way of speaking.

That being said, I understand why you might have put D, as your answer or B, because these could work as sentences on their own, they don't have to be dialogue tags.

Tom shouted, and Sarah bellowed, could stand alone as separate sentences.

Okay, what I'd want you to do now is to complete the definition.

I would like you to copy and complete this sentence filling in the missing words.

Pause your video and write out the sentence filling in the missing words now.

Fantastic work students.

A dialogue tag is a group of words, that introduce or follow direct speech.

Dialogue tags identify who spoke and how they spoke.

Moving the dialogue tag.

Okay what happens, when we move the dialogue tag? What happens when we move the dialogue tag to the end of the sentence, how does that change things? Let's have a look at these two sentences she said, "I like beans." "I like beans," she said.

I guess we're going to play a bit of a game and spot the difference here.

I'd like you to pause the, and I'd like you to write down how these two sentences are different.

So what do you notice about the differences in the punctuation? So have a little look I would like you to press pause and to do that now, what is different about those two sentences? We are going to go through the answers now so don't worry if you found that difficult.

If you want to put your dialogue tag at the end of the sentence, so that it is following your line of direct speech, you need to remember the following rules.

So the first one is that you use a comma before the close inverted commas.

If your dialogue tag is at the end of the sentence, you use a comma before you close the inverted commas.

So you may have noticed that when you were looking at those two different sentences, shall we have a look? Okay so in the second one where the dialogue tag is at the end, you can see that there is a common not a full stop, a comma before the close inverted commas.

And that is the rule for when you have the dialogue tag at the end of the sentence, unless you are using a question mark or an exclamation mark.

The second thing to notice is that, if you are using a pronoun, for example, he said, she said, or they said, you should not use a capital letter.

Shall we go back and have a look at what that looks like in the context of those two sentences? So as you can see in that second sentence, it's a small ,S, for the pronoun.

So when your dialogue tag is at the end of the sentence, the rules change, the rules change okay.

So to demonstrate our understanding of that new learning, I would like you to do this checkpoint activity, which of the following has been punctuated correctly? So I would like you to pause the video, look at those three options and write down A, B or C, which of these based on that new learning, which of these do you think has been punctuated correctly? Absolutely fantastic if you got the answer, right.

The answer was C and we're going to explore why, don't worry, If you got that wrong, we're going to explore why right now.

So let's have a look at that key rule.

When your dialogue tag is positioned at the end of the sentence, you must put a comma before the close inverted commas So as you can see, option A didn't follow that rule, option A, put a full stop before the close inverted commas whereas in option C, we can see it's been done correctly.

Let's have a look at this next rule.

When your dialogue type is positioned at the end of the sentence, you must not give your pronoun, so, whereas like he, she, they, you must not give your pronoun a capital letter.

And as you can say, B did not follow that rule, but the rule was followed correctly in C.

Okay I would like you to demonstrate your understanding, of this in the following task.

I would like you to rewrite the following sentences so that the dialogue tags follow the direct speech.

So I've given you an example here.

So let's have a look at the sentence she said, "I am going to play computer games." So the task is you are being asked to change it so that the dialogue tag, goes to the end of the sentence so I've rewritten that sentence and presented it like this "I am going to play computer games," she said.

I would like you to do that for the next three sentences.

I would like you to rewrite them so that the dialogue tags are positioned at the end of the sentence.

But don't forget those new rules that we've learned.

So pause your video and have a go at that now.

Well done students I am so impressed with you thank you so much for your hard work.

Now don't worry, if you found the first one tricky.

Remember that you don't need to put a comma in before the close and inverted commas if the direct speech ends with an exclamation mark or a question mark.

So that might have caught you out, but don't worry about that.

So you don't need to comma, if it ends with an exclamation mark or a question mark.

what would I used to do? Is I'd just like you to pause the video for a moment and just check your work really carefully, correcting any mistakes, thank you.

Okay I'm so pleased, so pleased with these students who've done a fantastic job today thank you.

Now, before you do your exit quiz, I just wanted to say, once again, a massive thank you for your hard work, you really have done a fantastic job.

If you are able to, please take a picture of your work and ask your parent or carer to share it with your teacher so they can see how hard you've been working.

And if you'd like, you could ask your parent or carer to send a picture of your work, to be Oak National Twitter account, and then I can see it too.

Well, thank you very much for all your hard work, and don't forget to complete your exit quiz very well done.

Thank you very much and take care.