BLOG POW 5

What Older Writers Do

          The first topic discussed by Pat Cordiero is what tendencies older elementary students have when trying to punctuate their writing. Cordiero identifies that students at this age often end up with fragmented sentences due to different hypotheses they have gathered in the last few years. Most third graders made “misplacements which could be classified syntactically and semantically as phrase structure”(Cordiero 51).  Sixth graders tended to struggle with run-on sentences as their thoughts and stories become more detailed and complex.

The Writer as Editor  

            Cordiero had students edit by writing a hand written draft and then editing while they copy their hand written stories to a word processor. She noted that some students only added punctuation in the editing stage, while others tended to completely change their thoughts and ideas as they edited in an attempt to make their stories more clear to the reader. IT IS NORMAL FOR SRUDENTS SUCH AS DORA AND HER FRIENDS TO EXPERIMENT WITH THEIR EDITING AND PUNCTUATION (compounded object of preposition with two or more personal pronouns). Cordiero identified that at the sixth grade level most students use editing to try and make their stories understandable to the reader. HAVING TO EDIT AND READ OVER THEIR OWN WORK HELPS THEM TO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPTS OF GRAMMAR (COMPOUND VERB). Cordiero noted that students WHO had learned through instructional systems, versus learning to spontaneously process punctuation, struggled with actual concept of punctuation (USING WHO IN A SENTENCE).  DORA AND THE OTHER STUDENTS ARE GROWING AS WRITERS WHEN SHE AND THEY EXPERIMENT WITH THEIR WRITING (COMPUND SUNJECT WITH TWO PERSONAL PRONOUNS).

What’s a Writer to Do?

            Cordiero believes students who have been active in the writing process “punctuate from a set of hypotheses that they have formed based on prior experience” (Cordiero 55).  Students who have edited their own writing generally have a better understanding of punctuation than those who have been using workbooks to learn punctuation. Cordiero argues that WHOMEVER corrects their own work will grow as writers (USING WHOMEVER IN A SENTENCE). Workbooks generally lay out simple sentences, while children in their own writing tend to create more complex sentences. Cordiero says punctuating is far more about learning your own set of abstract rules than simply memorizing the rules out of a workbook. DORA’S TEACHER LET SHE AND THEM DEVELOP THEIR OWN INTERPRETATION OF GRAMMAR (compounded direct object with two or more personal pronouns).

What Punctuation Does

            Pat Cordiero defines punctuation as “abstract symbols that make a story able to stand alone without the author’s intervention”(Cordiero 56).  Punctuation allows writers to segment their writing so the reader only has to take in so much at a time. Paragraphs allow a writer to move forward to a new idea by presenting a short pause. Punctuation, such as an apostrophe, allows writers to identify their meaning. Cordiero argues that the rules change every time a writer picks up a pen, and holding kids to set list of rules will only damper their understanding of punctuation.

Characteristics of Today’s Punctuation

            Cordiero discuses Meyer’s theory that there are three types of writing that all follow different rules when it comes to punctuation: informal, formal, and narrative. Cordiero discuses Meyer’s theory THAT EXPLORES three types of writing that all follow different rules when it comes to punctuation: informal, formal, and narrative (REVISE THERE ARE SENTENCE). The formal style is punctuated more than the other since there is a tendency for the sentences to be longer and more complex, while the informal and narrative styles contained less punctuation. Meyer argues that good punctuation is more about good judgment than following a standardized set of rules.  Cordiero addresses that in school students are taught formal writing, which makes punctuation more difficult for them to grasp.

Toward a Theory of Punctuation

            Cordiero addresses that teachers have made a mistake in grouping punctuation, spelling, handwriting, and capitalization together. SPELLING, HANDWRITING, AND CAPITALIZATION all can be constrained into a final form, while punctuation cannot (TWO OR MORE SUBJECTS JOINED WITH AN AND). Punctuation is not mechanical skill that follows an exact set of rules. Cordiero states that we confuse kids by grouping an artistic skill with three mechanical ones.

Teaching About Punctuation  

            Telling students to out a period at the end of a sentence encourages them to merely memorize a rule that they do not have knowledge to grasp. Cordiero addresses a man named Dawkins who suggested that students should play with literature by adding and taking away punctuation so they understand the effect punctuation has on the writing. Writing is a new language to students and teaching punctuation as a set of standardized rules rather than a strategy deters them from fully understanding punctuation.