Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and I'm so glad to have you with me today for our lesson on direct speech.

Now being able to include direct speech in our writing is so important.

Maybe we want to show a conversation between two characters in a story or maybe we want to include the opinion of an expert in a newspaper article.

Either way, we need to make sure we punctuate that speech correctly so our reader understands what's being said.

So let's see if we can master this skill together today.

Today's lesson is called Speech Interrupted: Inverted Commas and Punctuation Rules from our unit called Speech Punctuation: Parenthesis and Apostrophes.

By the end of today's lesson, we're going to be able to accurately punctuate a speech interrupted sentence.

Now there are three main ways of including direct speech in a sentence that we write, and we're going to cover them all in today's lesson.

So if you're not feeling confident about how to punctuate direct speech, I really hope that you will be by the end of this lesson.

Let's get to work.

Here are the keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Direct speech.

Speech interrupted sentence.

Inverted commas.

And reporting clause.

Now direct speech is used to show that a character is speaking out loud in a text, and a speech interrupted sentence is a sentence in which a character speech is interrupted by the reporting clause.

Inverted commas are a pair of punctuation marks that signal direct speech to the reader.

And our reporting clause is a clause that tells the reader who said the speech sentence and how.

Here's today's lesson outline.

We're going to start off by looking at the rules for punctuating direct speech in a speech first sentence and a speech second sentence, and then we'll move on to looking at how we can punctuate a speech interrupted sentence.

And don't worry, I'll explain exactly what that is when the time comes.

Let's make a step.

So we use direct speech to show that a character is speaking out loud.

Here are some examples.

"Don't interrupt!" bellowed Mr. McIntyre.

Aisha sighed, "This is so embarrassing." "Can I have your signature?" Jen asked shyly.

Now in each of those examples, the words in purple are the words the characters said out loud, and that is the direct speech.

"Don't interrupt!" "This is so embarrassing," and "Can I have your signature?" are the direct speech, the words the characters actually said.

Jen didn't say Jen asked shyly, so that is not part of the direct speech.

Direct speech is shown to the reader using inverted commas, and you can see those in the examples.

They look like this.

You might have heard them called speech marks.

And inverted commas tell us where the words the character said begin and end, so they go around only the words the character said.

So like we've just said, the inverted commas go around the words that are spoken out loud by the character, the direct speech.

So here's a sentence without inverted commas, but I can tell there's some speech going on.

It says, "This is marvellous work," smiled Mrs. Begum happily.

I know that the words Mrs. Begum said were, "This is marvellous work," so I can put those in inverted commas.

I've got commas before and at the end of those words.

And then this section, smiled Mrs. Begum happily, is what's called the reporting clause.

This is where we say who said the direct speech and how.

So we have two parts: the direct speech and the reporting clause.

So we're going to build a little diagram at the bottom here to show us how we can punctuate our direct speech, and we will build this up as we go through the lesson.

It'll become more complicated, so we can just start off simply first.

We start off with our inverted commas before the first thing the character says.

Then we have the words they say, the speech.

Then we close the inverted commas, and then we have the reporting clause.

That's a very simple way of thinking about this sentence.

Okay, have a look at the sentence below, and I'd like you to decide which words are direct speech and which are the reporting clause.

Remember, the direct speech is the words that were said, and the reporting clause is who said it and how.

Pause the video and have a try.

Okay, let's take a look.

The words which were said are, "Let's join the queue now so we can go out to lunch sooner." So we can put those in our inverted commas before and after the exact words that were said, which means the reporting clause must be this section, whispered Andy with a grin.

So we've got there who said it, Andy, and how, he whispered it with a grin.

So we should have those two sections of our sentence.

Really good job if you spotted them.

Now if the direct speech comes before the reporting clause, like in the example we just saw, we call this a speech first sentence.

Here are two examples.

"This is awkward," chuckled Sam with a smirk, and, "Wash your hands thoroughly!" Mrs. Begum commanded with her arms folded.

Look how we can see the direct speech comes first in each sentence, followed by the reporting clause.

Now we have some special rules we need to learn when we're using a a speech first sentence like these.

In a speech first sentence, the direct speech always begins with a capital letter, but the reporting clause only begins with a capital letter if it starts with a name.

So we can see here we've got a capital letter at the start of this direct speech, but no capital letter at the start of the reporting clause 'cause chuckled is not a name.

In the second example, we have a capital letter at the start of the direct speech and the capital letter at the start of the reporting clause because we started with Mrs. Begum's name, which has a capital M wherever we write it.

Let's make our diagram a bit more detailed now.

So we open our inverted commas.

We have our capital letter, then we have the speech, then we have our closing inverted commas.

Then we have the reporting clause, which may start with a capital letter or may not, depending on whether there's a name.

And then you might have spotted there's a full stop at the end of the reporting clause 'cause it's the end of the sentence, and we can see one here and one here in our examples.

Now there's always also some closing punctuation at the end of the direct speech before that second closing inverted comma.

Let me show you.

You can see I've highlighted them in purple here.

"This is excellent!" beamed.

Mr. McIntyre.

"Clap this rhythm," Mrs. Begum instructed.

"Does your shoulder hurt?" Alex asked.

We can see before that second pair of inverted commas, we've got an exclamation mark, a comma, and then a question mark.

So we would use an exclamation mark to show a strong emotion or shock.

"This is excellent!" is a strong emotion, isn't it? And then we'd use a comma when we normally use a full stop in that sentence.

If Mrs. Begum had written down on the board, "Clap this rhythm," she would use a full stop there.

So we would use a comma here.

We can't use a full stop because this is in the middle of the sentence, so it wouldn't ever have a full stop there.

And in the third example, we've used a question mark because this is a question.

That's an easy one.

So let's make our diagram even more detailed.

We've started with our inverted commas.

Then we have a capital letter, like this D.

Then we've got the speech, the words that were said.

Then we need some closing punctuation, an exclamation mark, a question mark or a comma, not a full stop.

Then we have our closing inverted commas.

Then we have the reporting clause, this one is Alex asked, and then we need a full stop.

So we're starting to get a really good idea of the punctuation we need in a speech first sentence.

So can you see if you can decide which closing punctuation needs to be added to each sentence before that second pair of inverted commas that closes the direct speech? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, let's take a look.

For A, this is a question, so we must have a question mark.

B would be an exclamation mark because it's the strong emotion.

And for C, we'd use a comma because there's no strong emotion in this sentence.

If that was at the end of a sentence, we'd use a full stop.

We can't use a full stop 'cause it's in the middle, so we use a comma instead.

Now make sure you haven't forgotten each sentence after the reporting clause must have a full stop, like we see now.

Really well done if you got all six pieces of punctuation that you needed.

Okay, now let's have a look at a whole sentence.

What punctuation needs to be added to this sentence to follow all those rules for a speech first sentence? Pause the video and see how many you can get.

Okay, let's take a look.

Here's how the sentence would look punctuated correctly.

Let's go through our steps to check we've got everything.

We've got the inverted commas first.

We've got a capital letter to start the direct speech.

We've got the speech, "Stop causing such a nuisance!" Then we've got our closing punctuation here, We've got our closing inverted commas.

Then comes the reporting clause, and, finally, our full stop.

Now this reporting clause does not start with a capital letter 'cause scowled is not a name.

Really well done if you managed to get most of those.

Now we've talked about a speech first sentence, but another way of shown direct speech is to use a speech second sentence where the reporting clause comes first, not the direct speech.

Here are three examples.

Jacob moaned, "My stomach aches." Sofia's sighed, "Well, what do you suggest?" Mrs. Begum snapped, "I don't appreciate your tone!" Can you see here the reporting clause that says who said it and how comes first and then the direct speech comes second? And again, there are some punctuation rules we need to learn for a speech second sentence.

And don't worry.

We'll build up a diagram for this one as well.

So the reporting clause now comes at the start of the sentence, so it's always going to have a capital letter.

So we can see those here.

And it's always now also followed by a comma.

Look, we can see them here.

Jacob moaned, comma, my stomach aches.

My dad explained, comma, that's a bargain.

And then the direct speech always still starts with a capital letter, just like it did in a speech first sentence.

We can see those here.

So let's build up our diagram.

We start with a capital letter, then we have the reporting clause, then always a comma, then we open our inverted commas, always a capital letter, then the speech, and then we'll close our inverted commas.

So don't forget a comma at the end of the reporting clause on every occasion when it's a speech second sentence.

So where should the capital letter and inverted commas be added to make this a speech second sentence? You're going to have to see if you can work out which are the words that were spoken.

Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, let's take a look.

The words that were spoken were these: "Didn't you recognise me?" So that means they need to go inside the inverted commas.

Let's break it down with our diagram.

This part's already been done for us.

"My neighbour asked" is the reporting clause, where the capital letter before it is at the start of it and the comma at the end.

Then we did our inverted commas, our capital letter, we did it at the start of the direct speech, then the speech, "Didn't you recognise me?" then we've got our inverted commas.

And I bet you've noticed there's one piece we haven't added to our diagram yet.

Don't worry, it's coming up.

Now in a speech second sentence, the end of the direct speech marks the end of the sentence.

My dad exclaimed, "That's a bargain!" Sofia sighed, "Well, what do you suggest?" Jacob moaned, "My stomach aches." We've seen those already.

So now because the end of the direct speech is the end of the sentence, it can't end with a comma anymore.

We couldn't put a comma at the end of any sentence, but we can use a full stop now instead because it is the end of a sentence.

So we've got here an exclamation mark, here a question mark, and this one with a full stop, which, remember, we couldn't use at the end of the direct speech in a speech first sentence because that would've been in the middle of the sentence.

So we've got our capital letter at the start.

We've got our reporting clause with the comma at the end.

We've got our inverted comma beginning, our capital letter to start the direct speech, then comes the direct speech, "my stomach aches," then some punctuation to close the direct speech, an exclamation mark, a question mark, or a full stop on this occasion, and then we close the inverted commas.

Notice how that punctuation must come before the second inverted commas.

We can't put the inverted comma before a full stop, our question mark, or exclamation mark.

Okay, let's test that out.

Can you find the mistakes in each of these speech second sentences and correct them? Pause the video and have a try.

Okay, let's have a look.

In A, we have just one mistake here.

What's missing? It's the comma.

We should have that comma at the end of the reporting clause.

Two mistakes in B, here and here.

We should have a capital letter and then some punctuation at the end of that direct speech.

So I think we would have a capital Y and then a full stop.

There's no strong emotion here.

It's just like a normal sentence.

And then for C, we've got two missing pieces again.

Hmm, there should be a comma there in the first place, but notice how at the end of that sentence, we put the full stop after the inverted commas when it should be before.

So it should look like this, with full stop and then the closing inverted commas.

Really good job if you found all five mistakes and corrected them.

Great work.

Okay, let's try our task for the first parts of our lesson.

Here are some sentences which have speech inside them but don't have any punctuation.

So I'd like you to rewrite each sentence, adding in the inverted commas, the capital letters, and any other punctuation marks that are needed.

Some of these are speech first and some are speech second.

So remember you're gonna have different rules depending on whether it's speech first or speech second.

So pause the video and let's add in all those features we need to make these perfectly punctuated speech sentences.

Have a go.

Okay, let's check our work.

I'm going to show you the sentences with all the correct punctuation.

You might want to pause the video and check that you've got it all.

The first one is a speech first sentence.

"Is that relevant?" is the direct speech.

B is a speech second sentence.

The direct speech is, "This is my favourite restaurant." C is speech first, "What an excellent explanation!" D, speech first as well, "I've checked my work thoroughly." E is speech second.

"Let's take your temperature," is the direct speech.

And F is also speech second.

"Can you guarantee you'll be on time?" is our direct speech.

So you might want to pause the video now just to check you've got all those features correct, making sure a direct speech always starts with a capital letter; that if it's a speech second sentence, your reporting clause is followed by a comma; that you always have some punctuation before that closing inverted comma, whatever type of speech sentence you've written.

Really well done if you've managed to get those punctuation marks correct.

Well done.

Okay, we've done a fantastic job of learning those rules for punctuating speech first and speech second sentences.

We're now going to look at how we can punctuate a speech interrupted sentence, and we'll find out what we mean by that.

Now we've seen reporting clauses placed before and after direct speech.

And, remember, they tell us who's speaking and how.

For instance, "This is definitely the right place," Sam muttered quietly with a frown.

There's our reporting clause, "Sam muttered quietly with a frown," so that's a speech first sentence.

We could flip it the other way.

We could say: Sam muttered quietly with a frown, "This is definitely the right place." That's a speech second sentence.

And in that reporting clause, we can use synonyms for said adverbs and actions to show the emotion with which something has been said.

Let me show you some examples.

When we say synonyms for said, we mean words that mean similar things to said, for instance, muttered, bellowed, exclaimed, and stammered.

Each of those show the different emotion to how the person is speaking.

We can also use adverbs to say how they're speaking.

Remember, an adverb describes a verb.

So words like furiously, calmly, happily, aggressively really tell us more about how those words are being spoken.

And we can also include actions.

Someone could speak with a sneer, without looking up, looking up, or shaking his fist angrily.

All of those actions show us more about what's the emotion we're trying to show in our speech.

Let's see if you can spot some matching pairs here.

I'd like to match the reporting clause on the right to the most appropriate direct speech on the left to match up the emotions which are being shown.

And you'll see that in the reporting clauses, we have synonyms for said, we have adverbs, and we have actions.

Pause the video and see if you can match them up.

Okay, let's have a look.

For A, I would say: "Don't you have a conscience at all?" asked Laura furiously, rolling her eyes.

For B, I would say: "Let's be outside the leisure centre at four o'clock," Jun smiled, looking at his watch.

And for C: "Stop making a nuisance of yourself and help me!" Dad scolded, handing me a hammer.

So we can see some different synonyms for said there, as scolded and smiled, we've got some adverbs, like furiously, and we've got some actions, rolling her eyes, handing me a hammer, looking at his watch.

And all of those in the reporting clause contribute to showing me emotion with which the words were said.

Great job if you matched those up.

Now we've looked at sentences where we have the speech first and we have the speech second.

We can also place the reporting clause in between two pieces of direct speech.

Here's an example.

"Today," Mrs. Begum grinned, "I'll start our new book!" "Can't you see," Nana frown, "that I'm trying to read?" "For once, sighed Mr. McIntyre, "let's do this silently." Can you see how here the reporting clause is in between two pieces of direct speech.

When the reporting clause interrupts the direct speech like this, we call this a speech interrupted sentence.

The speech has been interrupted within that sentence by the reporting clause.

But we can see the direct speech could here be one sentence.

It's not two separate sentences.

This sentence would be "Today I'll start our new book." That could be its own sentence.

It is not two sentences.

"Today" is not a sentence, is it? In the second example, the complete sentence would be, "Can't you see that I'm trying to read?" And in the third, "For once, let's do this silently." That could be its own sentence, but we've interrupted it with the reporting clause.

It's not two separate sentences, and that's really important to bear in mind.

So is each of these sentences below a speech first sentence, a speech second sentence, or a speech interrupted sentence? And you might want to find the reporting clause to help you to decide.

Pause the video and have a try.

Okay, let's see.

In A the reporting clause comes second, so it's a speech first sentence.

In B, the reporting clause is in the middle, so it's speech interrupted.

In C, the reporting clause is also in the middle, so speech interrupted.

And for D, the reporting clause comes first, so it's a speech second sentence.

Really well done.

Now a speech interrupted sentence has a lot of punctuation going on, so we're gonna break it down into two parts.

We'll start off by looking at the start of a speech interrupted sentence and the special punctuation rules we need there.

So here's our example once more.

We can see we've split that one sentence, "For once, let's do this silently," into two pieces of direct speech.

"For once" and "let's do this silently" interrupted by the reporting clause "sighed Mr. McIntyre." So let's zone in on that first little piece of direct speech, "for once." Let's look at what rules we followed.

We started with the inverted commas.

Then we had our capital letter like we always do at the start of direct speech.

Then we have the words which we've chosen to put as this first bit of direct speech, just the words "for once" in this example.

Then that first piece of direct speech is always followed with a comma, which is here.

It couldn't be a full stop because this is the middle of a sentence.

And then we have our second inverted commas here.

Then the reporting clause, "sighed Mr. McIntyre," always in a speech interrupted sentence ends with a comma as well because the direct speech is going to continue afterwards, so we can't end it with a full stop.

It has to end with that comma.

So we have a comma at the end of the first piece of direct speech and a comma at the end of the reporting clause.

So here's another example.

"Today," Mrs. Begum grinned, "I'll start our new book!" So we can see it follows the same rules.

We have our first inverted commas, the capital letter, the comma to end the first piece of direct speech, the second inverted commas.

Then our reporting clause followed by the comma.

So you've got to remember there's two commas in this first part of the speech interrupted sentence.

So which of these speech interrupted sentences is punctuated correctly? And we're just focusing on the sentence up till the end of the reporting clause so far.

Pause the video and see which of them are correct? Okay, let's take a look.

A is not correctly punctuated.

It's missing a comma at the end of the reporting clause here.

B is also not correct.

It's missing a comma at the end of that first piece of direct speech.

C is correct because it has the comma here at the end of the direct speech and the comma here at the end of the reporting clause.

So in a speech interrupted sentence, we're always going to have those two commas.

Really well done if you got them.

Now let's move on to looking at the second part of the speech interrupted sentence, that second piece of direct speech.

So it also has its own rules, which we'll follow again.

So here we start with our inverted commas to show the start of the second piece of direct speech, "let's do this silently." Now the second piece of direct speech has no capital letter unless it's a name or the word I.

That's because this is in the middle of a sentence, and it's in the middle of that direct speech.

Remember, the direct speech would've been "For once, let's do this silently," but we've interrupted it with the reporting clause.

So that word let's would not have a capital letter because it's in the middle of a sentence.

So we can say straight away we go straight to the speech with a no capital letter unless we've got a name or I.

Then this piece of direct speech, the second piece of direct speech, ends the sentence, so it can't finish with a comma, just like in our speech second sentence.

It uses a full stop, an exclamation mark or a question mark instead.

In this case, a full stop because we're not showing a strong emotion or asking a question.

And then, of course, we must finish with our closing inverted commas here.

Let's look at one more.

Here we've got our inverted commas to begin that second piece of speech.

This one has a capital letter 'cause it's the word I.

Then we have our speech closing punctuation here, is an exclamation mark because we're showing excitement, a strong emotion, and we're finishing with those inverted commas there.

So we can now see the whole structure of a speech interrupted sentence.

Here's our sentence.

We'll start off with the inverted commas and the capital letter to start the first piece of direct speech followed by the speech itself with a comma at the end because it's the middle of a sentence.

Then we've got our second inverted commas.

Then we have the reporting clause followed by a comma every time.

We open our second piece of direct speech.

Then the speech.

Remember, only a cap letter for a name or the word I.

Then some closing punctuation, either an exclamation mark, a question mark, or a full stop, and our closing inverted commas.

And here's a final example we can think about.

We've got, "Can't you see, Nana frown, "that I'm trying to read?" Now remember, in each of these speech interrupted sentences, we are going to have two pairs of invented commas, one pair here and one pair here.

And we'll also always have two commas, one at the end of the first piece of direct speech and one at the end of the reporting clause.

They're really important to get right.

Okay, let's test our knowledge.

Can you find the mistakes in each of these speech second sentences and correct them? Pause the video and think carefully about what needs to be corrected here.

Okay, let's have a look.

In A, we can see there's something missing here, and it must be a comma.

We need a comma at the end of the first piece of direct speech.

In B, we've got two mistakes.

This B shouldn't be a capital letter, and we need some closing punctuation there.

I would do it like this, a small letter B and then an exclamation mark at the end.

And for C, we are missing a capital letter at the start, and at the end of the reporting clause we need a comma, so it should look like this.

Amazing job if you spotted all of those mistakes.

Well done.

Now here's a complete sentence which should have some speech interrupted.

We've said: "This morning," said Mr. McIntyre, "you must thoroughly edit your work." I wonder if you can add all the punctuation to this speech interrupted sentence.

Pause the video and have a try.

Okay, let's take a look.

Here's what it would look like with all the punctuation and other details added.

We had to add inverted commas at the start and our capital letter, a comma to end that speech, and the inverted commas, our comma after the reporting clause, inverted commas there, our speech with no capital letter, our closing punctuation, and our inverted commas at the end.

There's a lot going on, so if you've got that right, you've done an amazing job.

Now it's important to think carefully about where we should interrupt the direct speech, and we can use commas to help us with this so much.

I'm gonna show you how.

Let's say Aisha wants to say this: "Before we join the queue, shall we check how long it is?" I can see a comma here, and the comma here is showing us the end of a fronted adverbial clause.

"Before" is a subordinating conjunction starting the adverbial clause "Before we join the queue." And it's a fronted adverbial clause 'cause it's the start of a sentence.

So we can use that comma to be the place where we interrupt the speech.

So we can write it like this.

And can you see how I've put a reporting clause after where that comma was in the sentence.

"Before we joined the queue," comma, suggested Aisha wisely, comma, "shall we check how long it is?" So I've put the reporting clause after where the comma was in that sentence Aisha was trying to say.

Here's another example.

Sofia says, "Before that, we need to peel these vegetables." Now this comma is not after an adverbial clause because "before that" doesn't contain a verb, so it can't be a clause.

"Before that" is an adverbial phrase, a fronted adverb phrase, because it's at the start of a sentence.

So again, we can interrupt the sentence at that comma.

So we can do it like this.

"Before that," comma, muttered Sofia with a sigh, comma, "we need to peel these vegetables." So both times I've used the comma as the breaking point where I interrupt the sentence with the reporting clause.

Then I have to do all that punctuation we already learned, but I've used that comma to find out, where should I put that interruption? Now we can also interrupt the direct speech after a comma in a compound sentence.

So Lucas says this.

"I find it hard, but I'm determined to win." And I bet you've spotted this comma here.

We could do it like this if we did it as a speech interrupted sentence.

"I find it hard," comma, said Lucas honestly, comma, "but I'm determined to win." Look, I've interrupted the speech at the same point that comma happened in the original sentence.

Here's another example.

Andeep says, "You can come over tomorrow, or you can come on Sunday." So there's the comma.

I'm going to interrupt the speech there.

"You can come over tomorrow," comma, suggested Andeep, comma, "or you can come on Sunday." So again, the reporting clause goes after that comma, and then we add the rest of our speech punctuation.

So these commas are a fantastic way of helping us know where we can interrupt a sentence and it will still sound right and make sense.

So which version here has the interruption and the correct place for this idea? "This morning we are going to the leisure centre to swim." Those are the words someone wants to say.

Where could we interrupt that speech to make a speech interrupted sentence? Where's the place that would make most sense, and which version has done it correctly? Pause the video and have a think.

Okay, hopefully you spotted that it would be B because we can see the comma comes after "this morning." So putting the reporting clause after that, which is in this case a fronted adverbial phrase, makes the most sense.

"This morning," comma, said Mr. McIntyre, comma, "we are going to the leisure centre to swim." Well done if you spotted it.

Now let's try some more.

Where could we place the interruption in each of these ideas for a speech sentence, and what might that speech interrupted sentence look like? Pause the video and think carefully about this one.

Okay, let's take a look.

In A, the comma is after the fronted adverbial word, is "tomorrow," so that's why I would interrupt the sentence, maybe with something like this.

And I've made a reporting clause that I think worked with the words that were being said.

"Tomorrow," comma, said the headteacher coldly, comma, "you will need to persuade me you deserve a reward." In B, I can see a comma after that adverbial clause, "before you can come on the trip," so I'm going to interrupt my speech there.

"Before you can come on the trip," comma, said the secretary with a frown, comma, "I need a signature on this form." Really well done If you managed to spot the places of those interruptions and you had a go at how you could write them as a speech interrupted sentence.

Good job.

So let's do our final task for this lesson.

I'm going to show you some speech bubbles, and I want you to write a speech interrupted sentence using each of those bubbles.

And remember, use the commas to help you to put that interruption in the right place.

Now to help you out, I've put a diagram of a speech interrupted sentence at the bottom of the page.

Here are the sentences.

You've got the commas inside them to help you know where to interrupt, and you're going to have to use the diagram to help you to punctuate correctly, but it's up to you to come up with a reporting clause that's going to work for each of these sentences.

So pause the video and see what you can come up with.

Okay, let's have a look at some ideas.

Yours will look different because we won't have chosen the same reporting clauses, but hopefully you've got the punctuation correct, and you've interrupted the sentence in the correct place.

Here's how I did it.

I said: "I'd love to come," sighed Laura sadly, "but my dad says I can't." So I've interrupted with my reporting clause after that comma, which comes before "but" in the original sentence.

For the second one, "Next time," muttered Alex determinedly, "we are going to win that competition." So this time I interrupted where the comma was after that fronted adverbial phrase "next time." And for the last one, "Because I hurt my shoulder," Jun explained calmly, "I can't do PE today." Here I interrupted after that fronted adverbial clause, "because I hurt my shoulder," where we saw the comma in the original sentence.

Wow, we've done a lot of learning today.

Let's summarise it.

First of all, we learned that we use direct speech to show the words a character says out loud, and the direct speech is signalled to the reader by inverted commas.

We learned that the reporting clause says who is speaking and how they speak, and we learned that in a speech interrupted sentence, the direct speech begins and then it's interrupted by the reporting clause, and the direct speech is then completed at the end of the sentence.

You've done an amazing job today with some very complicated punctuation rules, and we've managed to write some really exciting sentences, which would be amazing to include in a story or in a newspaper article where we're trying to show someone's direct speech.

Great job, and I hope to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.