1st Edition

Descriptosaurus Punctuation in Action Years 4-6: Jack and the Crystal Fang

By Alison Wilcox Copyright 2022
180 Pages 145 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

180 Pages 145 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

180 Pages 145 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

The only cure for a deadly plague sweeping the country is the crystal fang of a dragon that has terrorised the surrounding countryside for many years. Until now, the location of its den on Dragon Ridge Mountain has remained a mystery. In a race against time, Jack battles through a storm to reach the top of Dragon Ridge Mountain. With Merlin to guide him, Jack enters the dragon’s den and comes... Read more

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART A – THE STORY JACK AND THE CRYSTAL FANG

CHAPTER 1 The Legend

CHAPTER 2 Dragon Ridge Mountain

CHAPTER 3 The Storm

CHAPTER 4 Merlin

CHAPTER 5 The Portal

CHAPTER 6 The Cave

CHAPTER 7 The Dragon

CHAPTER 8 The Escape

CHAPTER 9 The Great Story-Writing Rebellion

PART B – LEARNING PUNCTUATION WITH THE CHARACTERS: Level 1

CHAPTER 10 Meet the Characters Section 1: Jack

Section 2: Merlin

Section 3: Punctua (Fairy Godmother of Writing) CHAPTER 11 Editing a Story

QUEST 1: (Ending the Period Drought in the Unit of Sense)

Section 1: Writing and Editing Tips

Section 2: Sentences CHAPTER 12 Capital Letters

QUEST 2: (BaTtLE oF ThE caPiTaLSe)

Section 1: Beginning of a sentence/names of people

Section 2: Names of places

Section 3: Days of the Week & Months of the Year

Section 4: Capital Letters Editing Checklist CHAPTER 13 Question Marks

QUEST 3: (Interrogation in the Centre of Questions)

CHAPTER 14 Exclamation Marks

QUEST 4: (The Quest for Excitement at Shrieking Point)

CHAPTER 15 Inverted Commas (Speech Marks)

QUEST 5: (The Quest for Quotation, the ‘God of Speech’)

Section 1: When and How to Use

Section 2: How to punctuate inside the Speech Marks CHAPTER 16 Apostrophes

QUEST 6: (The Search for the Apostrophes’ Attachments)

Section 1: Possession

Section 2: Plural nouns ending in ‘s’

Section 3: Singular nouns ending in ‘s’

QUEST 7: (The Apostrophe Mystr’ry of the Missing Letters)

Section 4: Contraction/missing letters

Section 5: It’s/its; they’re/ their; you’re/your

Section 6: Editing Checklist CHAPTER 17 Commas

QUEST 8: (The confusing, bemusing, baffling List Comma Mystery)

Section 1: Commas in a list

QUEST 9: (Separated in the Break of Meaning)

Section 2: To make the meaning clear

Section 3: To separate parts of a sentence

QUEST 10: (The, Plague of, the Comma, Splicers)

Section 4: Comma Splicing

Editing Checklist

Punctuation Quests Level 1

Merlin’s Challenge

Level 1: Punctuation Challenge

PART C – LEARNING PUNCTUATION WITH THE CHARACTERS: Level 2

CHAPTER 18 Brackets

QUEST 1: (Quest for Explanations in the Land of Brackets)

CHAPTER 19 Dashes

QUEST 2: (Stress Test in the Dash of Emphasis Challenge)

CHAPTER 20 Semicolons

QUEST 3: (Quest for Connections in the linking Passages of Semicolons)

CHAPTER 21 Colons

QUEST 4: (Quest for the List of Introductions and Explanations in the Colon Tunnels)

CHAPTER 22 Ellipsis

QUEST 5: (Missing in the Land of Ellipsis)

CHAPTER 23 Hyphens

QUEST 6: (Quest for Meaning in the Land of Hyphen Fasteners)

CHAPTER 24 Bullet Points

QUEST 7: (Quest for Key Points at the Bullet Zone)

Punctuation Quests Level 2

APPENDIX:

QUEST 8: Merlin’s Challenge: Check-up for the Plague of the Comma Splicers

Punctua’s Challenge: Experimenting with Punctuation

Bullet Point Models: Job Advert

Bullet Point Models: Quest Mission Statement

Report Model: Missing Person Report

Planning Templates: Job Advert

Planning Templates: Quest Mission Statement

Planning Templates: Missing Person Report

Punctua’s Writing Challenge: An Alternative Ending to a Cliff-hanger

Apprentice Editor Certificate Level 1

Master Editor Certificate Level 2

Biography

Alison Wilcox is the author of the Descriptosaurus series and has worked as a primary school teacher for many years. Whilst teaching, she developed Descriptosaurus to scaffold and improve children’s creative writing, with dramatic results, and she made the decision to give up full-time teaching to work on the Descriptosaurus series. To keep up to date with current practices in schools, Alison undertakes brief teaching assignments, works with schools to develop new resources and conducts workshops for schools and teaching alliances.