The Media
Senior 2 · English
The Media
Lesson 4 of 4
20 min
A rumour is news that nobody has checked. It moves from mouth to mouth and phone to phone, and every time it is repeated it sounds a little more true. Writers who want to show this often use two tools: dialogue, so that we hear the characters speak, and repetition, so that we feel the same words spreading. In this lesson you will read a short story built on both, learn how to punctuate dialogue, and write a scene of your own.
An original short story written by Ganzaa.
"Did you hear?" Byiringiro burst into the classroom, waving his phone. "Did you hear? The exams are cancelled!"
"Cancelled?" asked Keza. "Who said so?"
"Everyone is saying it," Byiringiro replied. "It's in the group chat."
By break time, the whole of S2 knew. "Did you hear?" Gatete whispered to the boys at the tap. "The exams are cancelled. Everyone is saying it."
"Did you hear?" Umutoni told the girls in the dining hall. "Everyone is saying it."
Only Mutesi, the editor of the school radio club, was not smiling. She walked straight to Byiringiro. "Show me the message."
He held out his phone. The message had no name, no date and no logo. It had been forwarded many times.
"Who wrote it?" Mutesi asked.
"I don't know. Everyone is saying it."
"Everyone is not a source," said Mutesi quietly. "A source has a name."
That afternoon she went to the head teacher's office and asked him directly. Then she ran to the radio club's microphone.
"Good afternoon, everyone. This is the school radio," she announced. "We have checked the message about the exams. It is false. The exams will start on Monday, as planned. The head teacher has confirmed it."
In the classroom, Byiringiro put his phone away and opened his mathematics book.
At the end of the bulletin, Mutesi added a sentence she would repeat every week for the rest of the year: "Before you share, stop. Before you believe, check. Stop, check, then share."
Dialogue is the conversation between characters in a story or play. It shows what characters are like through their own words, and it makes scenes lively.
Worked example
Compare: Mutesi told Byiringiro that everyone was not a source. (reported speech) with "Everyone is not a source," said Mutesi quietly. (dialogue). The dialogue lets us hear her calm, firm voice.
In a play script, there are no quotation marks. Write the speaker's name, a colon, then the words; put stage directions (instructions for actors) in brackets:
BYIRINGIRO: (waving his phone) Did you hear? The exams are cancelled!
KEZA: Cancelled? Who said so?
Repetition is the use of the same word, phrase or sentence pattern more than once, on purpose.
Worked example
"Did you hear?" and "Everyone is saying it" are repeated by four different characters. The repetition does three jobs: it shows how a rumour spreads from person to person; it shows that nobody checks, because each person simply repeats the last one; and it prepares the reader for Mutesi's reply, "Everyone is not a source," which breaks the pattern.
Mutesi's closing line uses a repeated structure: "Before you share, stop. Before you believe, check." Repeating a pattern makes a message rhythmic and easy to remember, just like Abraham Lincoln's "of the people, by the people, for the people" in Unit 1.
Tip
New speaker, new line. Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks. When you write about repetition in an exam, don't just say "the writer repeats words": quote the repeated words and explain the effect (emphasis, rhythm, spreading, a character's feeling).
Punctuate correctly: who wrote it mutesi asked
Solution: "Who wrote it?" Mutesi asked.
Rewrite as a play script: "The exams will start on Monday," Mutesi announced into the microphone.
Solution: MUTESI: (into the microphone) The exams will start on Monday.
Which repeated sentence shows that nobody has checked the rumour?
Solution: "Everyone is saying it." Each character gives the crowd, not a named person, as the source.
What is the effect of the repeated structure "Before you share, stop. Before you believe, check."?
Solution: The pattern gives the advice a strong rhythm, so listeners remember it; it works like a slogan.
Write a scene of 8–10 lines of dialogue between a journalist and a witness to an event at your school (a fire drill, a football final, a visit). Use correct punctuation, at least three different reporting verbs, and one phrase that is repeated for effect.
Model answer:
"Can you tell me what happened?" asked the reporter.
"We were in the laboratory when the alarm rang," Ishimwe replied. "Everybody stayed calm. Everybody walked, nobody ran."
"How long did it take to leave the building?"
"Less than three minutes," he said proudly. "We practise every term."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"No one," Ishimwe answered. "Everybody walked, nobody ran, and nobody was hurt."
Remember
Sources and credits
