Quoting accurately: the author's exact words
Reading · 5th grade
What a quotation is, and why readers quote
By the end, Maya will be able to explain what a quotation is and why readers put someone's exact words inside quotation marks.
About 30 minutes to teach
Teach the idea
A quotation is somebody's exact words, copied inside quotation marks. Those marks make a promise to the reader. They say these words are not mine, and I did not change them.
Readers quote so anyone can check. If you say a character is brave, a quotation lets someone open the story and find the very words.
Changing even one word can change what someone meant. The store is closed and the store is closed today are two different pieces of news.
In the story Maya will read next, Hazel tries to report news from memory. Watch what happens when the words are not exact, and what Pop teaches Hazel about quotation marks.
Do it together
Maya reads:The First Issue
463 words
Hazel Park was eleven, and she had decided to start a newspaper. It would be one page long, it would come out every other Saturday, and it would be called The Bell River Bugle. Her grandfather, Pop, who ran Park Hardware on Front Street, had read a newspaper every morning for sixty years. He said a town without a newspaper was a town that forgot things.
For her first issue, Hazel wanted real news. She rode her bike to the library, where Mrs. Lindqvist, the librarian, was stacking books onto a cart.
"Any news?" Hazel asked.
Mrs. Lindqvist pushed up her glasses. "Well," she said, "the library will close early on Friday for the new carpet. We'll open again Monday at nine."
Hazel nodded. She didn't have a pencil, but she was sure she would remember. She rode on to the bakery, then to the ball field, then to the river, where her best friend, Theo Walsh, was fishing off the dock. By the time she got home, her head was buzzing with news.
That night she typed her headline in big letters: LIBRARY CLOSING FRIDAY.
In the morning, she carried the first copy downstairs to Pop. He read it slowly while his coffee got cold. Then he tapped the headline with one finger.
"Is the library closing for good?" he asked.
"No," said Hazel. "Just early. For carpet."
"That's not what this says," said Pop. "This says the library is closing. Half the town will think Mrs. Lindqvist is out of a job." He set the paper down. "What were her exact words?"
Hazel tried to remember. Early. Friday. Carpet. Something about Monday. The words had gotten mixed up with the bakery and the ball field and the fish.
"I don't know exactly," she admitted.
Pop reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a stubby pencil and a small notebook, the kind he used for orders at the store. He put them in her hand.
"A reporter writes down the exact words," he said, "and puts them inside quotation marks. That's a promise to the reader. It says, these words aren't mine, and I didn't change them. Anybody can check."
So Hazel rode back to the library. This time she wrote while Mrs. Lindqvist talked, and then she read the words back to be sure.
"That's exactly right," said Mrs. Lindqvist, and she smiled. "Most people don't check."
The first issue of The Bell River Bugle came out that Saturday. The headline said LIBRARY TO CLOSE EARLY FRIDAY FOR NEW CARPET. Under it, Hazel printed Mrs. Lindqvist's words exactly as she had said them, inside quotation marks.
Nobody lost a job. Twelve people read the Bugle, and one of them was Mrs. Lindqvist, who pinned it to the library's front door.
1. Ask Maya to read the story under the heading Maya reads, called The First Issue. When Maya finishes, ask what Hazel set out to do and what news Hazel brought home from the library.
2. Ask Maya what was wrong with Hazel's first headline, and what Pop told Hazel a reporter must do with someone's words.
3. Have Maya find Mrs. Lindqvist's real words in the story and read them aloud, including the quotation marks. Then ask how those words differ from the first headline.
4. Ask Maya why readers use quotation marks at all. Listen for the idea that the marks are a promise, or that anyone can check the exact words.
5. When you both feel ready, move on to the activity below labeled Together.
Activity
Together: Exact words. Hand Maya a cereal box, a recipe card, or a letter with a few sentences on it. Read one sentence aloud once, then put it away. Maya writes the sentence from memory. Now bring it back: Maya puts one finger on the real sentence and one on the copy and circles every change, even a missing comma. Then Maya asks someone in the house a question, like Say: What did you like to do when you were my age?
, writes the answer while they talk, and reads it back to them to check that every word is theirs.
Tip If Maya glosses over the idea of exact words, pick one short sentence from the story and change a single word together. Ask Maya what the new version would make people believe. If Maya already understands and wants more, let Maya copy one real sentence from a cereal box or letter with quotation marks before you start the activity.
On paper
Worksheet
Exact Words
The worksheet, as it prints
Reading · Worksheet
Exact Words
Use the story "The First Issue" to answer each question.
Name: Maya
Score: ____ / 6
1. Write what a quotation is.
2. Copy exactly what Mrs. Lindqvist says about Friday, with quotation marks around her words.
3. What was wrong with Hazel's first headline?
4. Why did Hazel get the words wrong the first time?
5. Copy the words Pop says quotation marks promise the reader.
6. What would happen if Hazel had printed her first headline?
This took Arbor about a minute
Your child’s year, written like this
Maya isn’t real. Arbor writes these for your kid: their name, what they love, and where they actually are in each subject.