An excerpt from the rough draft of my upcoming book, Lessons: A Teacher’s Life:

Long story ahead, but it will relate to commas, eventually, I promise.

I know how incredibly blessed I am by having my education provided for me. When I went to a private, Christian university for undergraduate degrees in English and German, I went tuition free because both my parents worked for the university. My mother was a librarian, first in acquisitions and then in special collections, and my father, after he received his master’s in theology, became a representative, which basically meant that he was an itinerant preacher–moving around the southeastern states and visiting people who supported the ministry that supported the university. One of the benefits of working at the university for at least two years was free tuition for your children.

 My parents didn’t make that much money, so this benefit made it possibly for my older brother and me to go to college. For the first part of my time there, I lived at home with my parents, but when they moved back to Alabama to be closer to their own aging parents, I lived in the dormitory. My grandmother and great aunt paid for my room and board. I carried two jobs and paid for the upkeep on my vehicle, gas, and books, so I got off easy. 

Then, when I went to Auburn University two years later, it was my grandmother and great aunt who paid my tuition. They had both been long time educators themselves who had risen from poverty because of their teaching degrees and knew better than most the value of an education; they helped all their grandchildren, nieces, and nephews at one time or other.  At Auburn, I once again lived with my parents, paid for my books by working horrible jobs (more about this later) and never had to take out a loan or apply for scholarships. 

My master’s in education at Western Carolina came quite a bit later, but once again, I was blessed. I had been applying for teaching jobs as soon as my husband John and I decided to move to North Carolina, and although I had already become certified to teach 8-12 grade English and German, I couldn’t get a job, even after John started working as an ultrasound technologist at a small hospital south of Asheville. I had several interviews in several counties but no go. 

On a whim, I decided to apply for graduate school at Western Carolina University in Sylva, about 60 miles from our home south of Asheville. I was accepted but didn’t think I would be able to go since we were newly married, newly moved–my husband with a new job fresh out of ultrasound school, and me without a job at all. I wouldn’t be able to afford the out-of-state tuition. We were hoping to buy a house soon on top of all of that. I had signed up to do some substitute teaching, $50 a day, and rarely worth it. You know how kids teach substitutes. 

But, probably less than a week after I got my acceptance letter, I received another letter from the English department asking if I would come in for an interview. I guess my five years of high school teaching experience and the emergency need for freshman composition instructors made me a good candidate for receiving a graduate assistantship. My out-of-state tuition fees would be waived; my stipend was enough to pay my tuition, books, and the gas it would take to drive from Hendersonville to Cullowhee. 

It was settled. I was going to graduate school. 

Finally, we get to the commas. Well almost. 

The first semester I was required to take a course called “Teaching Rhetoric and Composition”–a down and dirty English composition teaching course. Despite my having taught for five years and having had several teaching courses at Auburn while I worked on my English Education degree, I had to take the course. All graduate assistants were required to take it, and although a bit miffed at first, I soon found the course useful and learned quite a bit.

One of the things I learned, I’ve written about at length in this blog–The Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Writing. Those ideas came from a visiting lecturer in the rhetoric course.

The other part of that first semester was working in the university’s writing center. My job was to tutor students as they came in to work on their essays. I stayed very busy in the center, especially because of Western’s CC program. I forget what CC stands for, but essays in any non-English class that did not meet basic college-level writing requirements received a CC. If students received two CC’s, they had to take a developmental English course that was notoriously hard to pass, and if the student did not pass, then they were suspended. Quite a few students, therefore, would come in to the Writing Center after the first CC to avoid that grammar class. 

The woman who ran the center was one of the best teachers I ever had. She taught by example. I would listen as she tutored students, helpful and patient but never overhelping, even when sorely tempted. Plus, she had all sorts of materials available to help students and gave me permission to take and use any materials as long as I credited the center. One of the most used handouts at the center was the director’s six simple comma rules. I used this handout as the base of my comma lecture for years because the rules were easy to understand, using little grammatical terminology, and the examples illustrated each rule well. 

I’m afraid that handout is only in my mind now, but I used some form of those basic rules throughout my tenure as a community college instructor. It was just always the easiest for my students to grasp in the triage-type grammar teaching that I found myself doing. I added the comma rules to my editing workshop worksheet that I gave to my students when they were preparing their final manuscripts for grading. Here’s what they boiled down to:

Use commas

1. to separate items in a series of three or more
2. to set off introductory material
3. around words interrupting the flow of thought
4. between complete thoughts joined with a conjunction (if two complete thoughts are joined with just a comma, the writer has a comma splice—major grammar error)
5. with direct quotations
6. with everyday material such as dates and addresses

Although I tried to keep grammatical terminology to a minimum, I did use some, so at the beginning of the lesson, I would remind students of some basic terms: 

• Noun
• Subject 
• Verb
• Coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS)
• Independent clause 
• Dependent clause. 

After the review, I went through each of the six comma rules, giving examples of each. If time was short, I would just cover the first four. 

As a warmup to the lesson, I would try to engage students by using another cool example I learned in grad school.  At the beginning of class, without saying anything else, I would write the following sentence on the board: 

A woman without her man is nothing. 

I asked the students to write the sentence down and add two commas. I gave a minute to complete that and then would ask for volunteers. Often, here in the South at a small community college where sexism is alive and well, students, both male and female, would answer, “A woman, comma, without her man, comma, is nothing.” 

Of course, I would challenge them, tell them there was another solution: A woman, comma, without her, comma, man is nothing. One comma, one comma, I would say, totally changes the meaning of the sentence. That’s how important commas are, I said. 

Then I would begin. 

Rule #1 –Items in a series–First because it was usually the comma rule that students were most familiar with. 

I like apples, bananas, and oranges. 

I explained that if you have three or more items in a series, then you need to add commas between the items. 

I use the Oxford comma and only talked about the option of leaving that remaining comma out if a student brought it up. Commas are confusing enough to students, especially those in developmental classes, so I tried not to complicate things unnecessarily. 

Rule #2–Two independent clauses joined with a coordinating conjunction. I would give an example: 

The dog ran after the cat, but the cat held its ground and fought back. 

It is good to include a compound sentence that needs a comma and another coordinating conjunction that does not need to be separated from the rest of the sentence so that you can explain the difference. 

I explained that you have two independent clauses, reminding them that the only seven words that can join two complete sentences together are the FANBOYS, the coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. In the case of this example, you have two complete sentences (independent clauses) joined with but, one of the fanboys, so you need the comma, I would tell them. 

I asked students if they see another conjunction. They would usually find the and. I asked, Why do we not use a comma here? Often times they didn’t answer, so I would ask if there were a complete sentence on either side of the conjunction. No. Then, there is no need for a comma. 

Rule #3–Commas after introductory material. I would explain that you need a comma after words, phrases, and clauses that come before the main clause and give examples:

• Nevertheless, I left the room and never returned–nevertheless is a conjunctive adverb that modifies the whole sentence, so it needs to be set off by a comma.
• In the middle of the night, Julia heard a loud bang. In the middle of the night are two prepositional phrases coming before the main clause, so you need a comma to notify the reader that the two phrases are coming before the main clause. 
• As John was reading the book, he realized that he had read it before. As John was reading the book is a dependent clause–he realized that he had read it before is the main clause, so you need a comma after the dependent clause. 

Rule #4–Anything that interrupts the flow of thought. The next rule is super simplified, but usually this explanation helped students get the commas right without getting bogged down in too much grammar, especially restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. Oh, Lord, don’t go there. I explained that you need commas (most of the time) around words, phrases and clauses that interrupt the flow of thought in the sentence. Alternatively, I said that if you can pull the word, phrase, or clause out of the sentence and the sentence still makes sense, then you need commas around that word phrase or clause. Then, once again, I gave examples:

• The new owners, sadly, declined to renew the flood insurance on their house.
• The cat, along with its four siblings, were left in a box on the side of the road.
• The man, who is standing over there in a red shirt, is my partner. 

Note: This lesson is most effective if spread over two class periods, so there is enough time to answer questions, show more examples, or put students into groups to practice. One exercise I liked to do with students is have them write sentences that use the different comma rules but leave the commas out, exchange papers, and correct each other’s sentences.

I guess, I’m weird, but I really loved comma lesson day. It was pure unadulterated, nobody-could-accuse me-of-indoctrination day, except for that “woman without her man” sentence, of course. Might be too engaging for today’s classroom.

Another reason I’m glad to be retired.