Strand 3/Conventions - Post 1: Oh, Punctuation!

Punctuation is not linguistics (except when it is – see Geoff Nunberg’s The Linguistics of Punctuation). However, one of the primary concerns of many of the pre- and in-service teachers I work with is dealing with convention errors in their students’ writing – comma splices, fragments, and other usage errors (some are perceived errors, not actual ones, so I'll discuss that too). And there have been some requests from you to post some lessons related directly to punctuation, so here goes.

While I am obviously a strong advocate for taking time to delve into the study of grammar beyond its relation to punctuation, it is at least beneficial to better understand how the two relate to each other, and I've already alluded to this in some other posts (for example, this one on identifying clauses mentions fragments in writing). A brief investigation of the history of the punctuation, a better understanding of the various roles it has in our written language, and the ways in which standards of punctuation vary can all help students negotiate its use and will result, I’m certain, in fewer errors in writing.

Certainly knowledge of grammatical categories (like phrases and clause types) and certain grammatical functions (like modification) correlates with certain conventions; for example, to accurately punctuate complex clauses, one must know the distinction between subordinate clauses and coordinated clauses, or to accurately punctuate various kinds of modifying phrases, one must know whether something is a modifier or not. Now it is likely the case that the primary way we learn punctuation is by reading “accurately-punctuated” texts – but then there’s lots of variation there too (fragments are all over casual text and much fiction writing). Consider the fragments in this passage from Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch:

Inside, a tall, pale man dressed in black stood halfway down the hall, staring into a doorway. Beyond him, a dark room. A worn bed. White sheets dull in the shadow. Didn’t look like anyone had slept there in months. Dusty floor. Even before he’d started seeing Sintra, his place hadn’t looked this bad. (3)

So students will pick up on the fact that fragments are out there in "good" writing. It's all about making good rhetorical choices.