Pedagogy

26

Because the choices are limited (rules 1, 2, and 3) and the knowledge base specific (Tables 1, 2, 3, and awareness of the independent clause), the punctuation system here is not difficult to learn. It is to be learned by doing—the way all language skills are learned, which means a lot of doing, of course. So instruction consists of enough examples for discussion (numerous in college readers) and enough opportunities in writing to develop the experience needed for making good choices. In providing these opportunities the teacher will realize one of the strengths of the approach: it encourages students to analyze their semantic and rhetorical intentions. The student doesn’t try to match his or her sentence with a rule in a handbook, then respond in a behavioral sense; instead, the student reads and considers her or his intentions and the reader’s needs, then decides according to an intended meaning and emphasis. We like to say, in our discussions of the writing process, that writing is thinking. Indeed! In contrast to the rule-matching process required by a handbook, this approach to punctuating is an expression of the writing-is-thinking premise, for it provides the occasion and the tools for thinking.

27

To teach the system one needs a few handouts (like Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4) and a feeling for student needs in sequencing the material along with reading and writing assignments. For example, with basic writers one might want to pre-sent the hierarchy but limit initial practice to the period, comma, and zero (one can write a flawless paper with just these marks). Good instruction will then sequence the introduction of writing problems according to student needs. Of course, learning a system well takes lots of practice. Good writers get lots of practice; students should too.

28

As should be clear by now, learning to punctuate effectively requires only a little knowledge of grammar, much less than most English teachers will grant. One needs to recognize an independent clause in one’s writing, which requires bringing to a conscious level what one knows intuitively. All native speakers have what linguists call a “competence” that includes the ability to speak and comprehend independent clauses; so students who are native speakers quickly enough master the consciousness-raising task of identifying subject and finite verb (irregular syntax obviously requires additional work).

29

An appealing aspect of this meaning-based approach to punctuation is that it allows for individual differences in its application. (The fifth-grader, for example, should use his or her knowledge of the hierarchy—which may be incomplete, of course—according to his or her intentions.) A good writer chooses to do something (to choose a word, to begin a sentence adverbially, to punctuate). In choosing to do there is a positive, a constructive, a meaning-creating approach to writing; in contrast, in obeying a negatively worded rule, there comes a negative attitude, a negative approach to the process, for the student is punctuating to avoid error rather than to create meaning. Learning theory, as I understand it, suggests that learning to use a systematic procedure is far easier than learning to use a list of poorly ordered rules defined by a technical terminology with exceptions and footnotes and meager examples—all made more difficult because a behavioristic response is expected from very uncertain stimuli (the student’s own sentences).

30

Let me illustrate these general remarks on pedagogy with some examples of raising and lowering, punctuation practices that can and should be analyzed and practiced during reading and writing assignments. Reading how a good writer punctuates helps anyone grasp more surely some small yet significant point as well as, on occasion, a major point; and such study will thus help anyone punctuate more tellingly. So, consider what some good writers have done.

31

The following is raising to a comma (the fourth one) where a handbook asks for zero because the compounding is not of independent clauses:

(57) The business of being out for a walk, coming across something of fascinating interest and then dragged away from it by a yell from the master, like a dog jerked onwards by the leash, is an important feature of school life, and helps to build up the conviction, so strong in many children, that the things you most want to do are always unattainable.—George Orwell

This sentence, with its long independent clause with three commas, would become confusing if zero were used at the major point of separation within the sentence, even though zero would follow the handbook rule. Raising thus is important for clarity of meaning.

32

Raising from zero to a comma is common because it produces a simple yet clear emphasis, as in this:

(58) I was driving down the Thruway in Vermont to consult a doctor in New York, and hit a deer.—Edward Hoagland

The following illustrates raising from commas to periods:

(59) They float on the landscape like pyramids to the boom years, all those Plazas and Malls and Esplanades. All those Squares and Fairs. All those Towns and Dales . . . —Joan Didion

Didion clearly uses raising here to gain emphasis.

33

The effective sentence fragment also gains emphasis when an expected colon is raised to a period:

(60) I can recall that I hated [Southern black country life] generally. The hard work in the fields, the shabby houses... —Alice Walker

When the fragment shows raising from an expected comma, there is—as the system predicts—even more emphasis:

(61) The very name hallucinates. Man’s country. Out where the West begins. —Joan Didion

The first fragment is raised from a colon, the second from a comma.

34

Teaching the punctuation of fragments and when to use them teaches students how to write—quite different from the usual textbook instruction in how not to write. Teaching how teaches judgment—sensitivity to context—important in the development of taste. How else do we learn that some fragments work and others do not?

35

Consider an example of lowering, first punctuated as it might have been a hundred years ago and next punctuated as it typically is today:

(62) He searches for the lamppost with his cane, like a tennis player swinging backhand, and, if he loses his bearings and bumps against something, he jerks abruptly back, like a cavalier insulted, looking gaunt and fierce.

(63) He searches for the lamppost with his cane like a tennis player swinging backhand, and if he loses his bearings and bumps against something, he jerks abruptly back like a cavalier insulted, looking gaunt and fierce.—Edward Hoagland

The modern style (comma lowered to zero) better reflects the meaning, better reinforces the meaning, by more clearly reflecting what goes together and what does not. He “searches... like a tennis player swinging backhand”—a comma between those words separates what meaningfully goes together. And the same can be said for “he jerks abruptly back like a cavalier insulted.” One may be in the habit of marking off such similes with commas—and one has that option, of course—yet it is clear, I think, that the relationship is better expressed without the commas. Moreover, if and is separated from if with a comma, the suggestion is that and relates to “he jerks abruptly back” (the independent clause); however, and is more meaningfully understood as relating all that follows it with all that goes before—the two halves of the sentence.

36

Lowering is a device that reveals more connection between words, phrases, or clauses than the expected punctuation would; it is most commonly illustrated by lowering from a period to semicolon:

(64) The term “scientific literacy” has become almost a cliché in educational circles. Graduate schools blame the colleges; colleges blame the secondary schools; the high schools blame... —Lewis Thomas

A frequent example of lowering is the common violation of the handbook rule that tells us, unless the clauses are short, to use a comma between independent clauses:

(65) They are brimming with good humor and the more daring swell with pride when I stop to speak with them.—James Baldwin

And what effect is achieved in the following by lowering commas to zero?

(66) They asked it in New York and Los Angeles and they asked it in Boston and Washington and they asked it in Dallas and Houston and Chicago and San Francisco.—Joan Didion

37

Lowering justifies the effective comma splice (and, of course, suggests that teachers teach it). A couple of examples:

(67) But even so [Harvey] had his consolations, he cherished his dream.—Virginia Woolf

(68) I did not know that the British empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it.—George Orwell

38

Handbooks I have seen do not discuss the problem of punctuating three or more independent clauses as a single sentence, but according to the rule for “punctuating compound sentences” one should use two commas in the following:

(69) The debate might well have been little more than a healthy internal difference of opinion, but the press loves the sensational and it could not allow the issue to remain within the private domain of the movement.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

King, however, was clearly sensitive to the major and minor boundaries and followed the hierarchical principle by lowering (comma to zero) at the minor boundary—accurately reflecting his semantic intent.

39

A long while ago, in a long-neglected book, George Summey told us what was wrong with style manuals and handbooks: “The notion that there is only one correct way of punctuating a given word pattern is true only in limited degree. Skillful writers have learned that they must make alert and successful choices between periods and semicolons, semicolons and commas, and commas and dashes, dashes and parentheses, according to meaning and intended emphasis” (4). By teaching raising and lowering, we will be adding to our students’ repertoire of skills; we will be encouraging students to clarify the meaning of sentences and to gain intended emphasis. Such instruction illustrates what in our composition classes we like to proclaim but don’t always demonstrate: writing is thinking.