D.L.P. – Week Eight GRADE SEVEN

Day One – Skills Punctuation – Titles When referring to a title when writing, it must be punctuated properly. Shorter works are placed in quotations. Shorter works include poems, short stories, songs, a chapter in a longer book, or a newspaper or magazine article. Longer works include books, names of magazines or newspapers, and movies. Punctuation – Comma – Address Parts of an address are separated by commas. The city and state or country always has a comma between them. (Belle Vernon, PA) When writing an entire address in a sentence, separate the lines of the address with a comma. The lines of an address are the street address and the city, state, and zip code. (I live at 2 Maple Street, Belle Vernon, PA 15012) If both a city and state/country are in the sentence, they must also be separated from the rest of the sentence with a comma. (Belle Vernon, PA, is where I live.) Punctuation – Colon –Items in a Series When a list of items is included in a sentence so that the reader is warned that a list is coming, a colon must precede the list. However, if the reader gets no forewarning that a list will be coming, no colon is needed.

The setting for A Christmas Carol is London England. DAY ONE – SENTENCE ONE The setting for A Christmas Carol is London, England.

The play has the following main characters Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, and the ghosts. DAY ONE – SENTENCE TWO The play has the following main characters: Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, and the ghosts.

Day Two – Skills Punctuation – Comma – Compound Sentence When two independent clauses are combined with a conjunction to form a compound sentence, a comma must be placed before the conjunction. Agreement – Distributive Pronouns The distributive pronouns (each, either, neither) are always singular, so the verb that accompanies them must also be singular. Many singular action verbs end in s. (Each of the pages is… Neither of the boys goes…) The antecedent of the definite pronouns must also be singular. (Each of the boys gave his best performance.)

Juan and Maria disliked Scrooge in the beginning of the story but they liked him better toward the end. DAY TWO – SENTENCE ONE Juan and Maria disliked Scrooge in the beginning of the story, but they liked him better toward the end.

Each of the three ghosts had their part to play. DAY TWO – SENTENCE TWO Each of the three ghosts had his part to play.

Day Three– Skills Pronoun Usage – Antecedent Reference Pronouns take the place of nouns. An antecedent is the noun that the pronoun takes the place of. Sometimes the noun is not stated directly in the sentence, but the reference is understood. (She stood there teaching the class. Although the teacher is not in the sentence, the context makes that clear.) Sometimes, there is more than one noun in the sentence, so it is important to be clear which noun is the antecedent. (The boys both enjoyed the game, but he enjoyed it more. Who is he? This is not a clear reference to an antecedent.) Punctuation – Comma – Appositives If an appositive is a single word, it is the writer’s choice to place comas around it or not, but a multiple word appositive must be set off from the sentence with commas.

In the movie version, they had some great scenes. DAY THREE – SENTENCE ONE The movie version had some great scenes.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol one of the most famous stories ever written in the 1840’s. DAY THREE – SENTENCE TWO Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol,one of the most famous stories ever written, in the 1840’s.

Day Four– Skills Punctuation – Apostrophes in Possession An apostrophe is used to show possession or ownership. If the word showing ownership is singular, then the apostrophe is placed before the s. (boy’s) If the word is plural and ends in an s, then the apostrophe is placed after the s. (groups’) However, if the plural word does not end in an s, then the apostrophe is placed before the s. (children’s) Joint possession means more than one person owns something. If one thing is owned by more than one person, the apostrophe and s appear only on the final person in the group. (Bob and Mark’s car) Capitalization – Proper Nouns – Things Names of specific things must be capitalized. They may be the names of products (Kleenex), holidays (Fourth of July), or companies (Nike). When the noun is more than one word, follow the same rules for capitalizing words in a title. Punctuation – Comma – Participial Phrases When a participial phrase comes at the beginning of a sentence, set it off with a comma. Remember, a participle looks like a verb so it often ends in “ing” or “ed.” Participles work like adjectives, so they are not needed in the sentence and can be removed, but they do add good description. (Excited by the news, Elizabeth jumped up and down.)

Scrooges selfishness made him forget the meaning of christmas. DAY FOUR – SENTENCE ONE Scrooge’s selfishness made him forget the meaning of Christmas.

Seeing that his life is filled with greed Scrooge changes his ways. DAY FOUR – SENTENCE TWO Seeing that his life is filled with greed, Scrooge changes his ways.

Day Five– Skills Punctuation – Comma – Items in a Series If more than two items are used in a list, this is called items in a series. Each item in the list must be separated by a comma including a comma before the conjunction. Rambling Sentences A rambling or stringy sentence adds one idea after the other. Ideally, a sentence should not have more than one and in it. Find a better connector of ideas or break the rambling sentence into several sentences. Parallelism When a series of items appear in a sentence, they should all be the same part of speech. If two are nouns, then the third should be a noun. If there are two prepositional phrases, then the third should be a prepositional phrase. (people, places, and things… tall trees, babbling brooks, and bright sunshine)

The ghosts showed Scrooge his past present and future. DAY FIVE – SENTENCE ONE The ghosts showed Scrooge his past, present, and future.

This play had good characters, and it had a good plot, and also the ending was good. DAY FIVE – SENTENCE TWO This play had good characters, a well-thought plot, and an interesting ending.