Blog #6

 

For our Literature Circles discussion groups, I read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. This was a funny and intriguing book about the uses of punctuation (I know it sounds nerdy, but it was actually really cool)! This book was a great refresher on the general uses of punctuation and how they increase the overall quality of your writing, teaching me a few new things to incorporate in both my own writing and my future classroom. This book taught me three main lessons that will help guide me in my future writing and teaching students how to write in the future.

 

1. The Importance of Punctuation



"To be fair, many people who couldn't punctuate their way out of a paper bag are still interested in the way punctuation can alter the sense of a string of words."

Here, Truss is stressing to us, in her usual humorous way, the importance of punctuation, even though most people don't realize it. In this sentence, she is referencing those fun sentences where you place a comma in between different words to change its meaning. While I like punctuation and its variety, I don't think that I've ever stopped to fully consider how important it truly is. Without a question mark at the end of a sentence, someone could think I was simply stating an opinion. Without periods anywhere in my writing, my train of thought would be hard to follow as I would keep rambling on with no definite end. Punctuation is "a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling."

In my future classroom, I will have to convey the importance of proper punctuation to my students if I hope to see them become successful readers and writers. Without punctuation, all of literature and language would be lost. I could incorporate those fun sentences into a mini-lesson, showing the students how punctuation can change what the author is trying to convey. By using punctuation correctly, my students will be able to succeed and rise above most others in our society who still fail at where to place a comma in a sentence.

 

2. The Changing of Punctuation

"It is useful to remember, however - as we struggle to preserve a system under attack - that a reader from a couple of hundred years ago would be shocked by present-day punctuation that we now regard as flawless and elegant."

While punctuation definitely is important, we must all remember how much punctuation has changed over the years. Taking a quick look at Shakespeare's writings will reveal the changing punctuation and spellings of the English language, so much so that most people struggle to understand what he means. I learned, through this book and some of the discussions in class, that some punctuation is a choice of style (for example, not all people see the necessity of the Oxford Comma, even though I believe those people are wrong).

As teachers, we cannot change our students' writing style by forcing rules upon them that we follow. We have to take a step back and look at their content before attacking their mechanics. It's important to show them how writing can help them before we lay out all of the rules they must abide by. After they see the importance of writing, then we can slowly work towards correcting their mechanics (at least the ones that must be followed). After all, the rules could change in the next 10 years for all we know.

 

3. The Capability for Punctuation

"If I did not believe that everyone is capable of understanding where an apostrophe goes, I would not be writing this book."

Here, Truss is explaining why she chose to write this book: she believes that everyone is capable of learning how to properly use punctuation. I used to think that some people would just never learn how to properly use punctuation (and taking a look at any Facebook post would prove my point), but it may be that they just don't care enough to learn. It's not that they are too "stupid" to understand how a comma is used, it's that they don't see the importance of it (refer to point #1).

While teaching in the future, it will be my job to spur my students on from not caring about punctuation to seeing it's importance and taking the time to learn it. I will have to approach all of my students through lessons and activities with the though that they are able to complete that which I am asking them to do. My students will all be capable of learning how to mark their sentences properly, and it's my job to take them to that point of success.