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Bringing "Abnormal" Discourse Into The Classroom, Virginia M. Tucker

English Faculty Publications

Assuming student discourse is prone to error, teachers have long implemented rules that ensure "safe" discourse, particularly in composition instruction. My fifth grade teacher taught me to place a comma in a sentence whenever I take a breath rather than teaching me the language of comma rules. To my dismay, many of my first-year composition students raise their hands in agreement that they too have been taught to place a comma wherever their lungs suggest. These students learn to call independent clauses a complete sentence, and to them an ellipsis is merely “dot, dot, dot.” In an attempt to reach …