1. Practice Using Direct Quotations
Use Method 1: Provide a sentence of context before your direct quotation. Then, simply use a subject, verb, and comma before your direct quotation.
Page 122: My fingers fly up and cover my mouth. What am I doing?
Potential Answer: For the first time in the novel, Melinda actually conveys her feelings. She says, “My Fingers fly up and cover my mouth. What am I doing?” (122).

2. Practice Using Direct Quotations
Use Method 2: Provide context with an introductory clause before your direct quotation.
Page 122: “When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”
Potential Answer: Mr. Freeman explains to Melinda the importance of speaking when he says, “When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time” (122).

3. Practice Using Direct Quotations
Use Method 3: Use ellipsis (…) to omit the middle portion of a longer quotation you wish to use.
Page 122: “You’d be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside— walking through the days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a mack truck to come along and finish the job.”
Potential Answer: As they drive, Mr. Freeman tells Melinda, “You’d be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside…just waiting for…a mack truck to come along and finish the job” (122).

4. Practice Using Direct Quotations
Use Method 4 (Blending): Integrate direct quotations into your own sentence structure. This is often best suited for one-word quotations and short phrases/clauses that can’t stand alone.
Page 6: “My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can’t decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly.”
Potential Answer: Melinda describes her english teacher as having hair that is both “black” and “Neon orange” that makes her look like she “is morphing into a monarch butterfly” (6).