Dialogue to direct speech.

Create a cartoon of a short dialogue between two characters.  Students should have this as a handout.

Now create a 'clothes line' activity  for a short dialogue where the words are available as printed strips.  You will also need all the punctuation marks.  Model to students how the speech bubbles in cartoons are reduced to punctuation marks in direct speech.

The next step is to provide students with a page of direct speech.  Ask them to identify some of the rules for the use of direct speech. Give them cues and prompts.  Generate a list of rules.  Check the rules against the page of direct speech to make sure that the rule holds true.

Now ask students to find the cartoon dialogue in their texts and to continue the dialogue as direct speech.  Remind them that they should include adjectives to describe the way that the characters are speaking and to show how they feel.