The Legend of the Beaver’s Tail
by Stephanie Shaw (Author) and Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Long ago Beaver did not look like he does now. Yes, he had two very large front teeth, but his tail was not wide and flat. It was thick with silky fur and vain Beaver was inordinately proud of his glorious tail. (Based on an Ojibwe legend.)
Snippet:
“This tail is the tail to end all tails!” Beaver said to Deer. “I’ll bet you wish you had one like this.”
Deer said, “Beaver, it is a fine tail, but what I truly wish is for some tender grass for my family to eat.”
Six Traits Mini Lesson
Trait: Conventions Using dialogue adds more to the story–more insight into the characters and more punctuation! The dialogue itself is punctuated and the dialogue tags are punctuated, too.
The punctuation for the dialogue goes inside the quotation marks. The punctuation for the dialogue tag goes outside the quotation marks.
“This tail is the tail to end all tails!” Beaver said to Deer. “I’ll bet you wish you had one like this.”
When the dialogue tag comes before the dialogue, the punctuation for the dialogue tag is added before the quotation marks, too.
Deer said, “Beaver, it is a fine tail, but what I truly wish is for some tender grass for my family to eat.”
Wherever the punctuation goes, there is only a single space after it. (Double spacing after a sentence is a carryover from the days of the manual typewriter!)
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