March 15, 2015

STAAR  Preparation for 7th Grade Writing

This week will be a more intensive period of review and polishing up on some skills that need to be honed. For example, on the dialogue rules, many students are a bit careless as to where to put the opening or closing quotation marks especially in a paragraph where the speaker's words are still continuing.

Consider this: " I love to go bowling when you are with me. Your company gives me so much fun," Tony declared.

Some students punctuate it this way: " I love to go bowling when you are with me. " Your company

gives me so much fun,"Tony declared.

The sentence after ...me is still part of the speaker's words, and he has not finished speaking. The open quotation  before "Your... is a mistake.

I am planning to give a mini-campus benchmark on revising and editing alone this coming Wednesday, March 18, if Mrs. Gonzalez permits, just to see again our progress in this area.