{"id":43,"date":"2018-03-12T00:59:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T00:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/sample-lesson-plans\/commas-when-to-use-them-and-when-not-to-use-them\/"},"modified":"2018-05-17T16:36:43","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T16:36:43","slug":"commas-when-to-use-them-and-when-not-to-use-them","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/?page_id=43","title":{"rendered":"Commas: when to use them and where to put them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I find commas all over the place in my students\u2019 work. Only rarely do they appear where they should.<\/p>\n<h2><em>Introduce the concept<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Project this:<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s wrong with these sentences?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From the cover of a magazine:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cRachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A sign on a store bathroom:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cAttention\u2014Toilet Only for Disabled Elderly Pregnant Children\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A Facebook post:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWe have 2 hours to kill someone come see us.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A fashion tip for the party:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cDon\u2019t wear black people.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Animal rights poster:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cStop Clubbing, Baby Seals\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mom calls the kids to dinner via Facebook:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cTime to eat children.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ask the class if they can see where the problem lies.<\/p>\n<p>Then explain. This is one of the most common problems among student writers: leaving out commas that are needed, and putting commas in the wrong places. It\u2019s a problem they can fix, starting today\u2014and learning to use commas correctly will make a big difference in the impression their work makes.<\/p>\n<h2><em>The lesson<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>I break the class into small groups, and assign each group one of the following sentences. Their task: to deduce a rule about where to place commas, based on the model.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the sentences I project on the screen:<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the rules for using commas? <\/strong><strong>Deduce at least one rule for your sentence.\u00a0<\/strong><strong>(Find the comma, and see how it\u2019s being used.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Before he joined the Army, Melvin was a slob.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019ll have the bacon, spumoni, and eggplant.<\/li>\n<li>She said, \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBut I\u2019m a vampire,\u201d he replied.<\/li>\n<li>You paddled your canoe to Nebraska, and I bicycled to Hawaii.<\/li>\n<li>The alien dog, which had green fur, wagged its tails.<\/li>\n<li>Shakespeare\u2019s most famous play, <em>The Empire Strikes Back, <\/em>was written in 1980.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>(If I didn\u2019t amuse myself when writing lesson plans, I\u2019d go crazy.)<\/p>\n<p>Each group then reports in, explaining the rule they came up with. If they\u2019re stumped, or wrong, I help them.<\/p>\n<p>When we\u2019re done, I project this master list of rules.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here are the rules for placing commas:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>After an introductory phrase<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Before he joined the Army, Melvin was a slob.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>In lists of three or more items, use a comma after each item except the last.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u2019ll have the bacon, spumoni, and eggplant.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>When introducing a quotation, place the commas as shown.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>She said, \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>When the speaker is identified after the quotation, follow this model:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cBut I\u2019m a vampire,\u201d he replied.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>In a compound sentence (two independent clauses joined by a conjunction), place a comma before the conjunction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>You paddled your canoe to Nebraska, and I bicycled to Hawaii.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li>When a word or phrase follows a noun and modifies it, if it\u2019s not absolutely necessary to the meaning of the sentence, put commas around it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>The alien dog, which had green fur, wagged its tails.\n<ul>\n<li>NOTE: If you need the phrase to clarify which dog you mean, then don\u2019t use commas: <em>The dog <u>that bit me<\/u> must be re-trained!<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"7\">\n<li>When using an appositive (a noun or noun phrase that gives more specific information about the noun just before it), put commas around it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Shakespeare\u2019s most famous play, <em>The Empire Strikes Back, <\/em>was written in 1980.\n<ul>\n<li>[Not true, by the way. I knew that.]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now it\u2019s time for students to try this for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>This can be done as a quiz, if you want to see how well they understand the rules, or as a group exercise, if you\u2019re confident that most of your students can do this. A third option: if you copy the following sentences into a Padlet window, each student can copy the list into a new window and place commas as needed. Then you can see which students, if any, need more instruction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Copy these sentences to a new window, <\/strong><strong>and place commas where they\u2019re needed<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Oil which is lighter than water rises to the surface.<\/li>\n<li>The closet contained worn clothes old shoes and dirty hats.<\/li>\n<li>After surviving this ordeal the dentist felt relieved.<\/li>\n<li>He replied &#8220;I have no idea where to put the comma.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Vests which were once popular have been out of fashion for several years.<\/li>\n<li>Bob like many students got advice from different sources.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><em>Homework<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>If many of your students still seem to have a shaky understanding of where to place commas, have the class complete this interactive quiz, which provides an explanation for each answer:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chompchomp.com\/hotpotatoes\/commas01.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.chompchomp.com\/hotpotatoes\/commas01.htm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If only a few students seem not to understand, you may want to assign the quiz only to those students.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u2022<\/p>\n<h2><em>Looking for more lesson plans? Consider buying the book.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/lesson-plans-available-book-to-come\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/h2>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I find commas all over the place in my students\u2019 work. Only rarely do they appear where they should. Introduce the concept Project this: What\u2019s wrong with these sentences? From the cover of a magazine: \u201cRachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.\u201d A sign on a store bathroom: \u201cAttention\u2014Toilet Only for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":25,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-43","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43\/revisions\/277"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegewritingclinic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}