Writing/ Grammar Text Presentation

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SUMMARY
Eats, Shoots, & Leaves by Lynne Truss is about different types of punctuation and how to use them correctly. Let's take it chapter by chapter to explain what it is really about. Chapter One titled “Introduction- The Seventh Sense” is about how amazing punctuation really is. It is tiny and adaptable system of marks that allow us to notate verbal expressions. It also jokes on the seventh sense of  “dead punctuation”. Chapter two titled “The Tractable Apostrophe” talks about apostrophes and how they are correctly used. Chapter three “That’ll Do, Comma” discusses commas and how to (and not to) use them. Chapter five’s “Airs and Graces” is about the not either well known, used, or used correctly colon and semicolon. Moving on to chapter six “Cutting a Dash” is about exclamation marks, which is definitely one of my favorite punctuation marks. Next onto chapter seven, “A Little Used Punctuation Mark” about hyphens. I for one know that I am super guilty of just not using hyphens because I don’t really understand them. Truss explains that hyphens should be used to avoid “letter collison” like in the word shell-like. Lastly, chapter eight, titled “Merely Conventional Signs”. This final chapter talks about how these small conventional signs actually make such a huge difference in how we write and how we interpret things in our everyday lives. “Through sloppy usage and low standards on the Internet, in email, and now “txt msgs,” we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, former editor Lyne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. If there are only pedants left who care, then so be it. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled.”
WHY I CHOSE THIS TEXT
Similarly to the last text I presented, somebody suggested this book to me and told me it was very helpful (thanks Meredith). So I bought it off Amazon thinking that if it at least helped one person, it obviously is helpful. When I got the book, I saw that it was all about punctuation. I thought I was pretty good at correctly placing my commas and quotation marks, but I was very wrong. This book has so many helpful tips on how to correctly place quotation marks, the history of why we use them, and examples of how to properly use these marks. I’m actually super happy that I purchased this book because if it helped me out and I’ve been in college for what seems like forever, I’m sure it could help a junior high or high school student learn the correct way to use these punctuation marks as well. 
TEACHING IDEAS
When looking at ways in which I can use this text in secondary ed., I came up with a few options that I thought might be fun. One activity I would want to look into doing is looking at famous celebrities, politicians, etc. and having the students go through and figure out what is wrong with these social media writings. I have found through looking online that so many people make common punctuation mistakes, and famous people are notorious for this (think of President Trump). Another activity I could do from this punctuation book is to have the students find one of their old writings and and edit it in their present day lives. We all make mistakes in our writing, so it would be interesting to look back and see how far we’ve come in even a few years. Lastly, let’s just take a second to even think about all of the things wrong with signs and advertisements in our own city. I could suggest a field trip through our town (wherever that might be) and write down all the mistakes we see on signs, ads, etc. Then write quickly the correct punctuation for them. 
CHALLENGES
When looking at this book, there are a few challenges that arise from the punctuation strategies that this entails. For one, students saying that they learned these subjects when they were little and don’t see a point in learning about them again. To that, I would have to say that we never stop learning, especially when it comes to punctuation. Like was mentioned in class on Monday with the Oxford Comma. It used to be essential that the comma was added and now it doesn’t really matter one way or another. Punctuation is constantly changing which means we have to constantly change with it. One other challenge with this book is my students understanding the material within. It can be super hard to understand during first read, but my advice would be that I struggled with it too and it would be a learning process for both of us. 
IMPORTANT IDEAS 

Anyone that is curious about correct punctuation or wants to just brush up on punctuation (because I really needed to) should definitely look into this book.

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