Monday, August 26, 2013

My Downfalls: Commas, Semicolons, Colons


Though I have always known that I wanted to teach high school-level English, it constantly slips my mind that this will include teaching grammar and the logistics of the English language.  I love READING AND WRITING ESSAYS AND ALL OF THE TYPICAL ASSIGNMENTS that you would associate with teaching high school English [series of verbs connected with and  no commas].  Even with a mother who is an English major and a harsh grammar critic, I find myself struggling with my punctuation often.

Throughout high school, my teachers critiqued my use of commas.  Sadly, I am not even consistent in my misuse of commas.  Sometimes I use them too often, and sometimes I forget to use them when needed.  I will occasionally combine two sentences with a comma when they should be two separate sentences.  I believe that this is called a comma splice.  I have greatly improved on this over the years, but by the end of this course, I hope that I am able to make few to zero mistakes when it comes to my use of commas.

Examples:
·      Sometimes I use them too often and sometimes I forget them when they are needed.
·      I went to the movie, a lot of my friends were there.
           

While doing some self-reflection during this blog post, I have come to a conclusion: I am scared to use semicolons and colons.  As I look back through previous assignments, I find very few instances in which I used either of these marks.  Furthermore, I do not feel that I completely and comprehensively understand all of the differences between the two.  I have a better understanding of when to use colons, but I have only really used them for lists.  I need to master these two marks and learn to correctly apply them to my writing.  I want to play with the way I punctuate my sentences more often, including using colons and semicolons.  Below is an examples of how I would use colons when writing lists.

Example:
·      I love all of the seasons: WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL [series of nouns connected with commas and no and’s]
·       
Below is an example of how I believe a semicolon is used, but I am not completely sure.

Example:
·      Hitler was a monster; he was worse than any fictions villain.