Literacy/Communication ideas, hints and tips

 Grammatical knowledge for teachers


Using commas in writing

With the advent of text messaging, msn and other new and innovative ways of writing, commas seem to be disappearing from students’ work. To gain a high level in English, students of all years need to show in their writing that they can use commas effectively, and correctly. Below are three ways to use commas in writing:

  • Separating items in a list—My favourite dogs are the Dalmatian, Fox Terriers, Labradors and Rottweilers.
  • Marking off extra information (or using parenthesis) where the extra information could be ’lifted’ out of the sentence and the sentence still makes sense —My street, unlike others in the area, is pleasant and welcoming. (My street is pleasant and welcoming.)
  • Joining two sentences (when using a connective such as yet, but, while, or) - You must hand in your essay by Friday, or it will not be marked.


Using ‘evidence in writing’

For those of us in curriculum areas who are helping students to learn how to include, and comment upon, evidence such as quotations and references to the text, I have a few pointers which might make their writing more cohesive. Point Evidence Explanation (PEE) can help students to structure their responses. Students need to make a Point (The author argues that organic farming is not paying for itself) and then use Evidence from the text to support their point (as she comments that “£32 million is given annually to subsidize such farms.”). Finally, the student needs to Explain how the evidence supports their point and links back to it (The use of “subsidize” helps to show that these farms do not survive without huge financial help and are, therefore, not supporting themselves). The challenge is in the explanation and students’ quality of explanations varies depending on their choice of quotation from (or reference to) the text, their ability to show their understanding and their predicted grade. It is important to point out that students who are targeting A/A* would not use this structure in such a rigid way and may transpose the PEE into EPE etc., as the use of PEE can constrain such students’ thinking and, therefore, writing. Nevertheless, the use of PEE helps students who are unsure how to structure their response to think about the text and to write responses in a fluent and cohesive way.

These are the three main rules students need to use commas; of course in English there are exceptions and additions to the rules!



Organizing an introduction to an essay

Students can be unsure about how to structure an essay. As well as the usual ways of paragraphing in a narrative/story where new paragraphs are begun to reflect a change of subject, time, event, place, speaker, students can learn that each new topic in a discursive essay means that a new paragraph needs to be started. Introductions and conclusions can also cause some confusion and students mechanically begin essays with “In this essay I am going to discuss/explore …”. Of course we as teachers know they are going to because we will be reading it! What can be suggested is that in the introduction the students explores the question or statement in the title and gives a brief summary of the main points and in their conclusion they can refer back to the main points they made in their introduction.


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