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.
