• 7-11
• Finnish

Aim: pupils find direct speech sentences and rules how to write them in their own texts/stories

for: 3rd class pupils (age 9-10)

Beginning: Pupils are in pairs and they have 12 sentences to sort. Sentences are affirmative sentences and direct speech sentences written with two different marks what we use in Finnish (with lines and with enverted commas).Teacher tells that sentences are from two different stories so there are no point to try to organize them to chronological order.Teacher anyway motivated pupils by telling about those two stories.

1. - Sort sentences into 2 or 3 groups. Talk with your pairs what are the arguments so that both of you can agree.

- pair groups have different kind of arguments concerning how they sorted

- all the arguments were acceptable (- Here they speak about animals and here not...etc)

- teacher anyway choosed gently pairs´ job which leeds towards aim

- this pair had sentences in three groups: affirmative sentences, direct speech sentences and question sentences (which were actually also direct speech sentences)

2. - Now we put away these affirmative sentences which we have in one group

- pupils read affirmative sentences and then we turned away them

3. - Sort now remaining sentences into two groups.

- again every arguments were acceptable (- Here are commas and here are question marks..etc)

- teacher again choosed one pairs`job were they had sorted sentences into two groups: direct speech wíth lines and direct speech with enverted commas

- we spoke that both are used in books and texts

4. - Now we choose this group direct speech whith lines for collective examine. Talk with your pair and write down into note stickers every detail what do you notice about writing direct speech.

- pairs wrote down what they found and that is how we got values for the ENV

5. - Now we can collect on the blackboard what you found and maybe share them into groups

- ENV on blackboards whith pupils note stickers

- E: direct speech sentences        

- N: direct speech      V: line before speech, comma, question or exclamation mark when speech ends, big letter in the beginning of sentence...

- N:who is saying       V: small letter after comma, question or exclamation mark except proper nouns...

6. Then we wrote rules down  into note book  for writing direct speech with a few examples.

Speculation: Pupils were motivated to sort sentences and they really talked about the subject.because teacher didn`t dissmiss any arguments all pairs were involved althought teacher choosed always one group for leading task towards aim. I ´m still little sceptical if everyone is now cabable to use what we learned.