Creative Activities and Games for Citing and Embedding Quotations!
Do your students struggle with citing and embedding quotations within their writing? I feel like I teach, reteach, teach again, remind again, comment again and again within feedback about these same skills… All. Year. Long. My students tend to struggle with the formula for citing text evidence correctly. I find that they frequently forget to move that end punctuation to after the citation, and they absolutely love to add the abbreviation for page into that citation. I cannot quite figure out why, but they just want to throw the letters ‘pg’ right in the middle of that parenthetical citation.
My students also struggle with truly embedding these quotations within their writing despite my repeated attempts to help them with this process. I have come up with clever sayings and interesting methods to help with these skills. This has helped dramatically. I use fun phrases to introduce these skills such as: ‘run-in quotes,’ ‘peppering a quote,’ and ‘deleting a quote.’ I use the phrase “no lonely quotes” in my lessons to remind students that they cannot simply throw a quote into the middle of their paragraph. You can learn more about the strategies I use to teach embedding quotations in this previous blog post.
Yet, even with these creative and engaging methods, my students still needed further practice to fully perfect and solidify these skills into their own writing. My citing text evidence unit provides a great deal of practice, but I wanted to find something truly engaging and, dare I say it, fun for students.
So, I created two fun and engaging ways to practice with these challenging skills.
1. Citing and Embedding Text Evidence Choice Board Assessments.
I wanted to find a way to get my students thinking from the perspective of the punctuation. I essentially personified the punctuation with these options. I created two choice boards, one for the actual process of citing text evidence, and the other for embedding those quotations within writing.
For the citing evidence board, I have included ideas like:
Create an Instagram post with caption and hashtags to show your knowledge of parenthetical citations.
Create a twitter chat between the period, parenthetical citation, and the quotation marks.
Create an office MEMO from the CEO (the quotation) to the punctuation to explain their job duties.
Create a one-act play that describes the relationship between the quotation marks, the citation, and the end punctuation when we cite textual evidence
Create a citation song or parody of a song.
Create a cartoon or comic strip told from the perspective of the punctuation.
For the embedding quotations board, I have included ideas like:
Create a political cartoon to show where lonely quotes fit in society.
Create a skit with characters to represent one of the following ways we embed quotations (run it quote, peppering a quote, deleting parts of a quote, or a lonely quote finding its way).
Create an Instagram page for embedding quotations with 9 posts to show all the ways we embed citations. Don’t forget to include captions and hashtags
Create a radio or television commercial jingle about embedding quotations within writing.
These are just a few of the options on these choice board. Each choice board has 12 options for students so they can pick the options that work best for their learning style and interest. You can grab both of these citing evidence choice boards for free here!
These fun and engaging options were a huge hit with my students, but nothing was more exciting and engaging that the Citing and Embedding Quotations Board Game!
2. Citing and Embedding Quotations Board Game
I created this board game to provide a fun way for students to really practice these skills on a regular basis in my classroom. Well… that is part of the whole truth. The real truth is that I was going to be observed for my “inter-rater” formal observation. In my district, this means that the learning coaches, admin, and potentially members of the school board will view my observation. It is video recorded for the viewing pleasure of any member that wishes to see Mrs. Taylor in action.
We complete one of these very formal and serious observations once every three years. I knew this observation was looming ahead, and I wanted to create a lesson that would show students applying knowledge in a truly engaging way. I wanted to show my students working together and collaborating meaningfully in this application of knowledge.
From this, the citing and embedding quotations board game was born! Prior to this observation, I taught my students the necessary skills, shared more fully in the blog post mentioned above. We practiced for a short while in the student notebook and completed a few days of bell ringer practice as well.
Then, the day arrived. The camera crew arrived, AKA the learning coach, and the observation commenced. We started playing this game, and I knew instantly that I would ROCK this observation. My students were engaged in meaningful practice. They were competitive but helpful. They discussed and learned from one another.
It was loud, but that great kind of loud where kids are learning and growing. The kind of loud that administrators love to hear. I bounced from group to group helping students, but I was a “guide on the side” to their learning. Exactly what my principal wanted to see. Needless to say, observation or not, this game has become an integral part of my citing and embedding evidence instructional practice.
About the Author
Liz is the founder of Teach BeTween the Lines. She has been teaching for over ten years; she has loved growing young minds through literature and the art of crafting the written word. She is currently working on her doctorate in Education from the University of Minnesota, and holds an M.A. in Education from St. Mary’s University, Minnesota. She loves to write short stories in her free time, especially in those cold Minnesota winters. She is supported by a wonderful family made better by the addition of her two beautiful children.
