Compound Sentences

My Goals

In my future I want to be a high school English teacher or better yet a professor at a university.  I need to improve on my writing skills before that day and hopefully this class will help me with that.  I have always thought that I was a decent writer but nothing special.  The various college courses that I have taken have showed me that I’m not actually as good as I used to believe.

My first grammatical issue is that I am confused on when to use the semi-colon.  In all of the ESSAYS, POEMS, and LETTERS [series of nouns connected by commas] I have used semi-colons maybe twenty times.  Throughout high school I was never taught when a semi-colon would be useful, and the difference between a semi-colon and a colon was never made clear  (COMPOUND SENTENCE WITH A COMMA AND FANBOYS).  I feel like using semi-colons would make my writing so much more powerful.  I think that incorporating semi-colons would allow me to link sentences more successfully than I do at this point in my writing.  By the end of the semester and this particular course I hope to fully understand when to use semi-colons and be able to incorporate them into my writing so that I can continue to improve as a writer.

I also have a hard time with clarity throughout my writing.  Often times my THOUGHTS AND IDEAS AND OPINIONS [series of nouns connected by “and”] become jumbled and unclear.  I think that the main reason for this is because I rarely have an outline before starting to write.  I prefer to just collect my thoughts throughout my writing ; it also becomes confusing (COMPOUND SENTENCE WITH A SEMI-COLON).  I hope that this course will help me to organize my writing better so that I can portray my IDEAS, THOUGHTS, AND OPINIONS [series of nouns connected by commas] successfully.  Many times I have heard that my writing would be great if I were more organized and clear.

I also use a lot of run on sentences.  I never know when to end a sentence and start a new one when I feel like I could say so much more.  I continue the sentence because it seems to be easy and clear.  However, when I read back through my writing I see that I have created complicated and confusing sentences.  I am confident that this course will help me to eliminate run on sentences from my writing.  Once I get a check on my run on sentences I should be able to improve my organization as well.

I have a lot to work on before I consider myself a successful writer.  I need to be able to use all things grammatical.  By the end of this course I would be very happy if I could fix all of the issues that I have discussed in the piece.  By fixing my run on sentence problem I should be able to fix my organization problem and learning to use semi-colons will be so helpful to me.  By the end of this course I expect myself to use semi-colons as often as the other grammatical symbols that I use.

*Sentence beginning with a FANBOYS:  I wanted to eat at a good restaurant because I wanted a good home cooked meal. But, my friend wanted to get fast food because it was cheaper and faster

"Dora Learns To Write"

Barbara Monroe

English 326

Spencer Nee

September 2, 2013

Dora Part 1

            If readers read the research article carefully they can see that the teacher does do enough to help Dora.  Throughout the entire article the teacher is subtly helping Dora to understand punctuation.  The teacher is careful not to criticize Dora’s work because young writers often understand constructive criticism as failure.  The teacher also allows Dora to develop her own ideas of how to use punctuation.  As stated in the reading, “Children may interpret teachers’ questions as criticism” (Stubbs, 1976).  This is exactly why the teacher is careful when helping Dora understand how to use punctuation.  The teacher, WHOSE (POSSESSIVE PRONOUN TO  SHOW OWNERSHIP OF THE TEACHER’S IDEA)  idea is a process-based class, is always forcing Dora to think about where her periods should go in sentences because every writer punctuates writing differently.  The teacher is trying to let Dora understand periods through reading.  The reason the teacher does this is because anyone could use punctuation that is different from YOURS (POSSESSIVE PRONOUN REFERING TO ANYONE OUTSIDE OF THIS ARTICLE).  Dora begins to understand where periods should go because the teacher allows her to read her own stories.  The teacher makes sure that Dora understands that she needs to pause at a period when reading.  By explaining this the teacher allows Dora to experiment with periods.  By letting Dora experiment in her own stories the teacher helps to broaden Dora’s understanding of punctuation, especially periods in this article.

            On the other hand the teacher doesn’t seem to be very involved in Dora’s writing.  The teacher never really explains what a period is in good detail.  A period is a strange piece of grammar, ITS(POSSESSIVE PRONOUN REFERING TO A PERIOD SO THAT THE READER UNDERSTANDS HOW I THINK OF A PERIOD) sole purpose is to separate thoughts and ideas but it can be placed in different spots depending on the writer.  This could be because Dora wouldn’t understand as a first grader but it raises suspicion about how Dora is supposed to learn.  Without knowing the purpose of a period it seems like it would be pointless to use them.  How does a small dot at the end of an idea separate it from anything else?  Without further explanation I feel like I would’ve had a hard time understanding periods as a first grader.

            It takes Dora a long time to apply the concept of sentence-end marking because it is an abstract idea.  To a first grader it seems like it would be so complicated.  Why does a period have to end a sentence? Why can’t a period be wherever I think it should go?  First graders are only learning to write so they aren’t thinking about how to separate things.  Dora has a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that periods end sentences and ideas.  Dora has to try different placements so that she can find which way she likes best.  Once she understands what purpose periods serve she does a better job of placing them in the correct place.  Learning how to punctuate properly is confusing.  Dora does a great job of correcting her mistakes and thinking about how to fix what might not sound right.  Deciding what defines a sentence is hard, which in turn makes it hard for Dora to use end-sentence marks.  Once Dora figures out what she thinks is a sentence she begins to use end-sentence marking and slowly but surely she learns how to end a sentence with a period.