Lesson video

Hello everyone, I'm Ms. Chu and in today's lesson, we're going to be practising writing direct speech for "Whale Rider".

Are you good at writing speech? Well, let's see, shall we? Let's go.

This is today's lesson outcome.

I can write sentences using accurate speech punctuation.

Here are the keywords needed for today's lesson.

I'm going to pause speaking and let you read through them.

Today's lesson is split into two parts.

Firstly, practising speech first and then practising speech second.

Let's start practising speech first.

We use direct speech.

Can you say direct speech? Brilliant.

To show that a character is speaking out loud.

Here's an example of direct speech.

"The leader will be a boy," declared Koro.

"I can learn and lead just as well as the boys," Paikea sighed softly.

The words in purple are the words that the characters are saying out loud.

This is what we call direct speech.

Direct speech is shown to the reader using inverted commas.

Can you see the inverted commas? They look like this.

The inverted commas tell us where the words the character said begin and end.

Let's practise direct speech.

Which of these use direct speech to show exactly what a character said out loud? Is it A, you must understand the importance of our traditions, B, "This is not the way things are done," Koro sighed, C, I want to be the leader, will it ever happen? Or D, "I want to show Koro that I'm worthy," declared Paikea.

Mm, pause the video and think about the inverted commas.

Good luck.

Okay, so shall we have a look at what the answers are? I gave you bit of clue by saying, "Look out for the inverted commas." So it's not A, because there aren't any inverted commas there.

B, yes, I can see a pair of inverted commas for, "This is not the way things are done." I want to be the leader, will it ever happen? Mm-hmm.

And "I want to show Koro that I am worthy," inverted commas, declared Paikea.

Well done if you got that right.

The inverted commas go around the words that were spoken out loud by the character.

Remember, we call this direct speech.

Your turn.

Brilliant.

"I want to be the leader," declared Paikea calmly.

I want to be the leader is what Paikea says out loud.

So that's why we have to put inverted commas at the start and at the end of what's being said.

The other part of the sentence, declared Paikea calmly, is what we call reporting clause.

This is the reporting clause.

It tells us who said the direct speech and how they said it.

So who, Paikea, how did she say it? She declared it and she declared it calmly.

So when we write speech, direct speech, we use inverted commas to start our sentence, we have our speech, we close our speech with inverted commas and then we write our reporting clause after our speech, direct speech first.

Let's look at the sentence below.

Decide which words are direct speech, the words that are being said out loud and which of the words are the reporting clause.

I'm going to read the sentence to you.

"You have the strength of our ancestors within you," exclaimed Nanny Flowers with a smile.

Which part of that sentence are the words being said out loud and which part of the sentence tell us who said it and how they said it? I want you to pause the video and just have a think about those two things.

The direct speech and the reporting clause.

Okay, have you had a think about which part of the sentence is direct speech? So remember, it's the bit that's being said out loud.

So it's "You have the strength of our ancestors within you." Well done.

And do you remember what we need, what punctuation we need to show that that is direct speech? Yes, we need our inverted commas.

So we have our direct speech within our inverted commas and then do you remember what comes after? Yes, the reporting clause.

We have to tell the reader who said it and how they said it.

Direct speech always begins with a capital letter.

Let's have a look at these two examples.

"The leader will be a boy!" declared Koro.

"I can learn and lead just as well as the boys," Paikea sighed softly.

You can see there at the beginning of the direct speech, we start or we begin with a capital letter.

So we have our inverted commas, capital letter and then our speech, "The leader will be a boy," and we close our direct speech with inverted commas again, followed by the reporting clause of who said it and how they said it.

Because the direct speech has come before the reporting clause, we call this a speech first sentence.

The speech comes first before the reporting clause.

In a speech first sentence, the reporting clause only has a capital letter if it start with the name of the person speaking.

For example, in the first direct speech that we're going to look at, "The leader will be a boy!" declared Koro, the word declared is not the name of the person speaking, so we don't need a capital letter there.

But in the second example, "I can learn and lead just as well as the boys," Paikea sighed softly, Paikea is the name of the person speaking, so we do need a capital letter there.

There is always some closing punctuation at the end of the direct speech before the second inverted commas.

Shall we look at these example together? "The leader will be a boy!" declared Koro.

If you look at the punctuation before the second set of inverted commas, you will notice that there is punctuation there.

I wonder if you know what that one is.

Let's look at the second one.

"I can learn and lead just as well as the boys," punctuation, inverted commas, Paikea sighed softly.

"Will it ever happen?" Punctuation, inverted commas, Paikea asked curiously.

So in the first example, there was an exclamation mark.

Your turn.

Well done.

That's to show strong emotion or shock.

In the second example, we've got a comma before the inverted commas, and that's when you would normally use a full stop, but because we are writing direct speech, the full stop only comes right at the end after the reporting clause.

And finally, in the last one, we have used a question mark for a question, because Paikea asked curiously.

When the direct speech comes before the reporting clause, we never use a full stop at the end of the direct speech.

Let's have a look.

So we've got our inverted commas, we've got our capital letter, we've got our speech, we've got our punctuation.

It could be an exclamation mark, a question for if it is a question or a comma.

Then we close our direct speech with inverted commas and then we have our reporting clause.

In these speech sentences, there's always a full stop at the end of the reporting clause.

There it is.

"The leader will be a boy!" declared Koro, full stop.

That's where our full stop goes.

Let's do a little bit of a check for understanding now.

Decide which punctuation needs to be added to each sentence.

"We cannot let go of our customs," punctuation, inverted commas, boomed Koro loudly.

"I want to show Koro that I'm worthy", punctuation, Paikea whispered quietly.

And, "Will it ever happen," punctuation, asked Paikea curiously.

Use the punctuation that's in purple to help you to work out what should go in the missing spaces.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, let's have a look.

"We cannot let go of our customs." Is that a question? No, it's not a question, so it cannot be the question mark, and boomed Koro loudly.

So if he's booming something, he would be shouting it.

So I think it's showing that he has a strong emotion about what he's saying.

So an exclamation mark would be appropriate for that sentence.

"I want to show Koro that I'm worthy," Paikea whispered quietly.

So it can't be a question mark, because it's not a question.

And remember, we said we cannot full stops in our speech, direct speech first.

So it's either an exclamation mark or a comma and it can't be an exclamation mark, because she's whispering it.

So it's our comma that goes there.

And finally, "Will it ever happen?" is a question so we need our question mark.

And then is there a final bit of punctuation that we need to put on in all three of these sentences? Yes, we need our full stop at the end of the reporting clause.

Well done.

Different synonyms for said can be used to show the emotion with which direct speech has been said.

We can see on this scale, from negative to positive.

So on the negative side, we might use words like screamed or yelled to show a negative emotion.

And then as we move towards the middle, we might use words like demanded, moaned, asked, wondered, which are more neutral.

And then more towards the positive side, we might suggested or gushed.

We can also use actions that are not synonyms for said to show speech, for example, someone might smile when they said their speech or they might have beamed.

We can also use adverbs to show how something was said.

An advert describes a verb, it tells us how it's done.

These are examples of adverbs, offered kindly, bellowed loudly, shouted angrily, whispered quietly and asked nervously.

Adverbs can also show an action, with a smile, with tears in his eyes.

Let's do a quick check for understanding.

Choose an adverb from the list to complete each speech first sentence appropriately.

"I have to prove myself!" whispered Paikea.

What adverb would go there? "Will Koro ever accept me?" she asked.

"I can do this!" Paikea declared.

Pause the video and have a think about which adverbs will be best placed in those missing spaces.

Okay, shall we have a look to see if you got them correct? "I have to prove myself!" whispered Paikea with determination.

"Will Koro ever accept me?" she asked desperately.

Well done, and "I can do this!" If you were saying, "I can do this," you are doing this confidently.

Well done.

We are now on to task A.

I would like you rewrite each of these sentences and add inverted commas, capital letters and other punctuation marks that you think are needed in your direct speech first sentence.

I'm going to read them out to you and I want you to have a think about which part of the sentence is the actual direct speech, which part the reporting clause and then afterwards, you can then think about inserting the appropriate punctuation.

Okay, "I have to prove myself," Paikea whispered with a determined look.

"Our leader must be strong and wise," Koro declared confidently.

"Paikea has the spirit of a leader within her," Nanny Flowers responded.

"Will Koro ever accept me?" asked Paikea with a trembling voice.

"I will show them all!" shouted Paikea as she rode the whale.

Pause the video and give this task a really good go.

Okay, well done on completing your task.

Let's have a look, shall we, at where the inverted commas and the other punctuation marks are needed.

So we need our inverted commas to begin our direct speech first and then at the beginning of every direct speech first, we need our capital letter.

Use the scaffold at the bottom to support you.

And then at the end of the speech, we either need a comma, an exclamation mark or a question before our inverted commas.

And then right at the end of the reporting clause is a full stop.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you got that right.

Now we're going to practise writing direct speech second.

Another way of showing direct speech is to use a speech second sentence.

Here is an example.

Koro declared, "The leader will be a boy!" Paikea sighed softly, "I can learn and lead just as well as the boys." In these two examples, Koro declared and Paikea sighed softly, the reporting clause comes before the direct speech.

There are some new punctuation rules for the speech second sentence.

The reporting clause now comes at the start of the sentence so it always has a capital letter.

Koro declared and then the speech.

Paikea sighed softly and then your speech.

The reporting clause is now always followed by a comma.

So we have our capital letter, the reporting clause and then our comma.

Look at those two examples there.

Koro declared, comma, Paikea sighed softly, comma.

Where should a comma and a capital letter be added to make this a speech second sentence? Her grandmother commented, "Our leader must be strong and wise." Pause the video and have a think about where the comma and the capital letter should go.

Okay, shall we have a look? So our sentence begins with, her grandfather commented, so we need a capital letter there and where our reporting clause ends, we need a comma there.

There are still inverted commas around the words the character said out loud.

Koro declared, "The leader will be a boy." So we still need to use our inverted commas there.

We have our inverted commas on our speech.

The direct speech still, even though it's in direct speech second, still starts with a capital letter.

So can you see there, we've got inverted commas, capital letter for, "The leader will be boy." This is what it looks like when we put it all together.

We've got our capital letter, reporting clause, comma, inverted commas, capital letter, speech and then we finish with our inverted commas.

Where should a capital letter and inverted commas be added to make this a speech second sentence? Koro instructed, "The future of our tribe depends on your strength!" Pause the video and think about where the capital letter and inverted commas should be added to make this a speech second sentence.

Okay, let's have a look.

The words that are said out loud are here, "The future of our tribe depends on your strength!" So they need a set of inverted commas before and at the end.

We've got our reporting clause which needs a capital letter and a comma at the end of our reporting clause for our speech second sentence.

Then we have our inverted commas, capital letter, our speech and finishing with our inverted commas.

In a speech second sentence, the end of the direct speech marks the end of the sentence.

This means it cannot end with a comma.

"The leader will be a boy," Koro declared.

If we change that into a speech second sentence, we have, Koro declared, 'cause that our reporting clause first, "The leader will be a boy." You can see in this sentence, that sentence ends with a full stop.

It cannot end with a comma this time and we can now use a full stop or we could use an exclamation mark or a question mark if it's a question.

We can now see the full structure for writing a speech second sentence.

Paikea whispered, "Will he ever see me as a leader?" We have our capital letter, our reporting clause, which is Paikea whispered, our comma, and then we start our direct speech with our inverted commas and then our capital letter, the speech, "Will he ever see me as a leader?" And then we end with, in this example, a question mark, because it is a question.

And then finally, we have our inverted commas.

Task B, rewrite each sentence, adding inverted commas, capital letters and other punctuation marks that are needed.

I will read through each of the sentences so that you can think about which part of the sentence is the reporting clause and which part requires inverted commas, which part is the direct speech.

Nanny Flowers commented with a smile, "You are destined for greatness." The young girl whispered, "I know you hear me, ancestors." Koro instructed sternly, "The future of our tribe depends on this." Paikea asked nervously, "Will he ever accept a girl as a leader?" She confidently announced, "I feel the ancestors guiding me." Pause the video so that you can complete task B.

Good job.

Let's have a look now to see where the inverted commas, capital letters and other punctuation marks are needed.

Remember to use the scaffold at the bottom to support you.

So we have, Nanny Flowers commented with a smile, so we needed our capital letter at the beginning for Nanny.

Then we needed our comma after our reporting clause, commented with a smile, then we have our inverted commas, capital letters and then our exclamation mark and our closing inverted commas.

For the second example, we have our capital letter, then our comma after our reporting clause, inverted commas, capital letter and then we have a full stop and inverted commas.

The third one, capital letter for Koro and comma after sternly, inverted commas and capital letter for the and then a full stop and inverted commas.

Then for number four, we've Paikea, capital letter, comma and then inverted commas, capital letter, a question mark for our question and inverted commas.

And finally, a capital letter for she and then a comma after announced, inverted commas, capital letter for I and finishing with a full stop and inverted commas.

To summarise.

Direct speech is the term used for a person speaking out loud in a text.

Speech first is punctuated with inverted commas and a comma, question mark or exclamation mark.

Speech second is punctuated with inverted commas and a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.

Inverted commas are used to demarcate the direct speech from the reporting clause.

And finally, a range of synonyms for said and use of adverbs gives the reader detail about how a character spoke and felt.

I hope you enjoyed practising writing direct speech for "Whale Rider" today.