Dialogue Puzzles

Place opening and closing quotation marks around the spoken words only, treating the marks as separate elements of the sentence

Capitalise the first word of the sentence and the first word inside the quotation, recognising that these are not always the same word

Move a speaker tag to the front or the back of a sentence and keep the punctuation correct, as the key's multiple accepted answers require

Copy each puzzle onto its numbered backing page before cutting, as the title page suggests; every one of a puzzle's twelve cards then carries the same number on the reverse and a spilled tray can be re-sorted in seconds

Start with puzzles 2, 6 and 7, where the speaker tag comes first - Betty asked, Peter shouted, Lisa asked shyly - since a leading tag makes the comma placement easiest to see

The key accepts several arrangements for puzzles 1, 5, 8, 9 and 10, so treat a student answer that differs from the first line printed as correct if the punctuation follows the move

Punctuating dialogue - opening and closing quotation marks, the comma before or after a speaker tag, and the end mark are all separate cards students must place themselves.

Choosing the right terminal punctuation - the ten sentences need a mixture of full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, supplied as distinct pieces ("Why is the sky blue?", "I want this room clean!").

Recognising dialogue verbs and adverbs - the puzzles use smiled, asked, yelled, pointed, said, shouted, screamed, thought and blurted, four of them modified by shyly, frantically, angrily or quickly.