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Brief Description

Objectives

Students

grammar, comma, punctuation

Materials Needed

Lesson Plan

a clever dog knows its master

i saw a man eating lobster

the butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names

at summer camp I missed my dog my little brother the odor of my dads pipe and my boyfriend

A clever dog knows its master. not A clever dog knows it's master.

I saw a man eating lobster. not I saw a man-eating lobster.

The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests' names. not The butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names.

At summer camp I missed my dog, my little brother, the odor of my dad's pipe, and my boyfriend. not At summer camp I missed my dog, my little brother, the odor of my dad's pipe and my boyfriend.
Lederer presents a few more instances where the correct punctuation makes a world of difference.

[a want ad] WANTED: piano to replace daughters lost in fire

[a newspaper headine] FATHER TO BE STABBED TO DEATH IN STREET

[a book dedication] to my parents the pope and mother teresa
Surely the intent was

WANTED: piano to replace daughter's lost in fire not WANTED: piano to replace daughters lost in fire

FATHER-TO-BE STABBED TO DEATH IN STREET not FATHER TO BE STABBED TO DEATH IN STREET

To my parents, the Pope, and Mother Teresa not To my parents, the Pope and Mother Teresa
To conclude this lesson, provide students with the following text of a love letter set in all lower-case letters. Simply copy and paste the text below into a word document. Use your word processor's font and type size settings to make the text large enough to fill up a page.

my dear pat, the dinner we shared the other night -- it was absolutely lovely not in my wildest dreams could i ever imagine anyone as perfect as you are could you -- if only for a moment -- think of our being together forever what a cruel joke to have you come into my life only to leave again it would be heaven denied the possibility of seeing you again makes me giddy with joy i face the time we are apart with great sadness john p.s.: i would like to tell you that i love you i can't stop thinking that you are one of the prettiest women on earth

Challenge students to work on their own or in pairs to punctuate the text of the love letter so that it makes sense. Give students 10 or 15 minutes to complete the task (more if they are rewriting the text). Then correct the text as a class. Let students share their suggested corrections. The end result is that the love letter text probably looks like this:

My Dear Pat,
The dinner we shared the other night -- it was absolutely lovely! Not in my wildest dreams could I ever imagine anyone as perfect as you are. Could you -- if only for a moment - think of our being together forever? What a cruel joke to have you come into my life only to leave again; it would be heaven denied. The possibility of seeing you again makes me giddy with joy. I face the time we are apart with great sadness.
John
P.S.: I would like to tell you that I love you. I can't stop thinking that you are one of the prettiest women on earth.

Just for fun, share with students Lederer's other version of this punctuated love letter (scroll down to the second copy of it). As you can see save for some misplaced punctuation, that love letter might have taken a very nasty turn!

You might end the lesson by sharing some of Lederer's observations about the English language. Especially fun are his Crazy English Essays.

Extra Challenge
Close the lesson with one additional humorous exercise in punctuation. Provide the following statement for students:

a woman without her man is nothing

Challenge students to punctuate that sentences in two ways so that it will have two quite different meanings. The results might be

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."

"A woman: without her, man is nothing."
Assessment

Provide students with an unpunctuated paragraph. Challenge them to think critically and grammatically as they make corrections to the paragraph.

Lesson Plan Source

EducationWorld.com with resources from http://verbivore.com/

Submitted By

Gary Hopkins

National Standards

LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.K-12.2 Reading for Understanding
NL-ENG.K-12.3 Evaluation Strategies
NL-ENG.K-12.12 Applying Language Skills

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Lesson Planning: Language Arts

Language and Literature Subject Center

Teacher-Submitted Lesson Plans: Arts & Humanities

Work Sheets from Teacher Created Materials: Language Arts

Education World®
Copyright © 2009 Education World

Originally published 10/24/2005
Last updated 04/24/2009

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facebookbadge] Brief Description Objectives Students grammar, comma, punctuation Materials Needed Lesson Plan a clever dog knows its master i saw a man eating lobster the butler stood in the doorway and called the guests names at summer camp I missed my dog my little brother the odor of my dads pipe and my boyfriend A clever dog knows its master.

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