I remember being in my Language Arts classes through
elementary and middle school and absolutely hating it. I hated how confused I was
by commas, clauses, run-on sentences, and how there were so many dang rules on
writing correctly. But by the time I reached high school English had somehow
become my favorite subject. Although it still is by far my favorite subject I feel
like I have things I can still work on to make myself a better writer.
One grammatical issue I need to focus on this semester is my
use of commas. For the most part I know when and where a comma is needed, but
there are times when I kind of just throw them into my writing because I think it should be there. I don’t want
to have to guess if I need a comma in a sentence or not, I want to
automatically know that either it does or does not belong in it.
One example of when I just guess on when to put a comma is
in a sentence where I am listing things and I am not sure if I should put a
comma before the ‘and’… “I’ve always wanted to travel to France, Spain, Italy
and Greece.” I just want to know when a comma is needed.
Another grammatical issue I would like to focus on this
semester is the use of colons, semi-colons, dashes, and ellipsis’. My writing
is based a lot on how I am saying it in my head, so when I pause my thoughts in
my head I always want to use an ellipsis to continue whatever thoughts come
next. Or with colons and semi-colons, I usually just stay away from them all
together in my writing because I am not that comfortable with them and would
like to be so then I can use them when appropriate in my writing.
For example, “High school was four years of fun, easy, exciting times…and then came
college.” I don’t actually know when ellipsis’ are appropriate to use, yet I like
to use them in my writing a lot…which is probably not the best thing to do
because I am probably using them totally incorrectly.
For colons, semi-colons, and dashes I just need to start
using them more often in my writing so I become familiar with them. I honestly
rarely ever use them because I just don’t like them, probably because I never
really learned when to use them and when not to. So I have no examples to show
for those…
Overall, from this class I hope to learn exactly when it is appropriate
to use colons, semi-colons, dashes, and ellipsis’, and when it is not. I hope
to gain more knowledge on writing techniques so that when I do become a teacher
I can teach the techniques to my students in a way that is easy for them to
understand so then they can enjoy English and writing and not despise it like
most people.
