The Great Punctuation Game

[Michele <EODICEMA@BUFFALOSTATE.EDU>]

Sonja...sorry to hear about the flooding...we, of course, have plenty of
*sandbags* here -- but not the type that can help you.  Buffalo has had no
winter to speak of because every one else got it!

Michele
________________________
Here are the directions for ÒThe Great Punctuation GameÓ

From: Hartwell, P. 1978.  ÒThe Great Punctuation Game.Ó Freshman English News,
7(1): 16-17.


Bring in a stack of magazines (I bring anything--New Yorker, Time, Harpers,
Utne Reader, technical magazines, etc.) and spread them out on a table.  Ask a
member of each group to choose a magazine and take it back to their group. 
Also have them choose a name for their team and put it on the board--that makes
it fun.  Ask them to work together as a team on this game.

These are the directions from Hartwell:

Mark two sentences in the magazine.  The first sentence should have: one colon
(:) OR one semicolon (;) OR one dash (--), plus associated commas.  The second
sentence should have: two or more colons, semi-colons, and dashes (and
parentheses may also be used), plus associated commas.  Write these sentences
on the board, omitting all punctuation.  In fairness, write in word internal
punctuation, like apostrophes and hyphens (as in word-internal), and include
quotation marks and italics, since they arenÕt predicable.  Note the magazine
and page numbers so you wonÕt lose your place.

NOTE: Often I just have them choose the second sentence (the one with 2 major
punctuation marks) in the interest of time.  If you want them to do both, be
prepared to spend 2 or 3 periods on this if you have several groups.

Teams will project their sentences in turn and other teams jump up to the board
and guess the *right* punctuation of the sentence.  One member of the team will
go to the board, read the sentence, and then write in the guesses of the other
teams.  The other members of the team will quietly keep score, announcing the
actual punctuation of the sentence -- and the scores awarded -- only after all
teams have guessed.


A team that matches exactly the punctuation of the sentence will be awarded two
points; a team that comes close enough will be awarded one point.  (Teams are
encouraged to be liberal in the awarding of one point.) If no team exactly
guesses the punctuation of the sentence, the team projecting the sentence wins
TWO points.


I found out the first time I played (and I played it with Hartwell) that the
rules donÕt always apply, even (or especially?) in professional writing...I
learned and students learn the power of punctuation to help the writer and
reader create meaning.  Then after all that, we wonder why we keep marking on
papers for *wrong* punctuation.  

Jim Strickland includes the game in his book From Disk to Hard Copy
(Boynton/Cook, 1997).  This version is designed for student groups working in
computer labs.

The first editing game is The Great Punctuation Game, adapted from Pat Hartwell
(1978) and Elray Pedersen (1991).  Students use search and replace function to
remove periods, extra spaces between sentences, commas, and semicolons from
their writing (making a copy of the original file so that version is
preserved).  Next, students mark their text and ask the computer to convert
case so all words are in lowercase letters.

At this point the game begins as students trade their text with partner. 
Students attempt to restore punctuation to the texts that they receive in
trade.  When finished, they compare punctuated version with original.  Each
correct mark of punctuation in the new version receives a point; punctuation
not in the original, which the author agrees to use, receives double points. 
Who scores more points becomes a forgotten issue as students begin interesting
conversations about punctuation.

HartwellÕs version of the game strips punctuation from professional pieces of
writing taken from published news and entertainment magazines.  Teachers might
try entering sections of an article into a text file and use these for an
interesting variation on the computer punctuation game.