Chapter 2 Calderonello

This chapter is mostly regarding grammar rules and not much text, however I did learn a lot from reading the section towards the end regarding sentence splices and fused sentences. The text states that it is actually considered "better" for a student to have a spliced sentence rather than a fused sentence, because in a splice, the 2 individual sentences are still seperated by a puntuation- just not the correct one. Therefore, the complete thought or statement of the sentence is being identified as having a beginning and somewhat of an end. However, in a fused sentence, the two sentences are simply lumped together with no puntuation seperating the two thoughts. The text also states that if a teacher has a student who experiences much difficulty in completing full sentences with correct punctuation at the end, then it may take the entire course of the year to get the student to correct this problem. If you had a student with this difficulty in producing correct sentence structure, what activity would you use to help him or her?

I especially liked the idea about dividing the class into groups and having each group be given a text with incorrect punctuation at the end of sentences and having each team compete to find the errors and turn in a correctly edited copy. I like this idea because the students are not critiquing their own work- it gives the idea that "everyone can make this mistake." I also think that by simply reading out loud throughout a school year and clearly pausing at the end of sentences can help a student to hear when a sentence ends. Finding creative activities in editing and by using auditory techniques throughout the year can improve a student's ability to know where to place a period at the end of a sentence.