Grammar and Writing

March 8-12, 2010

We will be learning about quotation marks this week. We are going to be role-playing the parts of a sentence that contains a direct quotation. Students will have a chance to be a quotation mark, a direct quote, a direct address, and other punctuation. Our rules of punctuation are as follows:

1. A speaker's exact words are called a quotation.

2. Use quotation marks (" ") at the beginning and end of the speaker's exact words.

3. Begin the quotation with a capital letter.

4. Quotation last: Use a comma.

He said, "This is easy."

5. Quotation first: Use a comma, question mark, or exclamation mark.

"How do you know?" the girl asked.

6. Place the end punctuation mark of a quotation before the closing quotation mark.

"You made an A!" Dad exclaimed.

Helpful vocabulary

Verb Tense: We need to change the spelling of verbs to show when they happened. Example: Ran, am running, will run.

Sentence Fragment: A piece of a sentence. A sentence fragment, like the shattered glass pieces, cannot stand on its own.

Example:

Sentence: We won the game yesterday!

Sentence Fragment: The game yesterday!

Subject/Verb Agreement: Just like friends that agree on a movie can watch that movie together, subjects and verbs must agree.

Example:

Does not agree: I teaching my dog to roll over.

Does agree: I am teaching my dog to roll over.

Proofreading: When we are finished writing, we need to check our writing. Everything should make sense to our audience, and our sentences should flow together. Did we use the wrong word, or would a time-order word help things to flow together?

Quotation Marks: We place these around a direct quote.

Topic Sentence: The first sentence in a paragraph.

Time Order Words: They tell the order, or sequence, of things. Examples:

To start with,

First,

Second,

Third,

Last,

Then,

After,

Before,

Final,

Finally,

Lastly,

In conclusion,

To conclude,

Possessive Nouns: We add

'

's

to show that someone/something is owning.

Add just an apostrophe when the word already ends with s.

Add 's to other words you want to show ownership.

We drew some pictures in class to help us remember these important words.

Verb tense: A time machine

Sentence fragment: A broken object

Subject/Verb agreement: Two people shaking hands

Proofreading: A paper, glasses, and a check mark

Quotation marks: A person saying something inside a thought bubble

Topic Sentence: A piece of notebook paper with an indention and a 1 at the top of the page

Time Order Words: A seed / a small sprout / a young plant / a full-grown plant

Possessive nouns: We drew ourselves holding up something we own.

Spelling Words: March 8-12(Test on March 12th)

Related words often have parts that are spelled the same but pronounced differently: please, pleasant.