The comma touch

Deirdre Newman

The comma isn’t an exceptionally entertaining grammatical element.

But walk into JoMarie Hayes’ seventh-grade humanities class at

Costa Mesa High School, and commas are the life of the party.

On Wednesday morning, chuckling could be heard as students,

working in pairs, focused on combining sentences using appositives

with commas.

The grammar lesson was made exponentially more fun by the

sentences such as “Flaming marshmallows, a delicacy in Deadwood, are

dangerous around porcupines and fireworks” and by the method the

students used to write the sentences: colored markers and miniature

whiteboards. As soon as they finished each sentence combination, they

held the whiteboard up for Hayes to check.

The whiteboards allow the students to work together and allow

Hayes to evaluate student comprehension quickly.

“They think they’re coloring and they love it, but what they’re

doing is giving me a chance to instantly assess what they know,”

Hayes said. “When I get to someone who just didn’t know, I could

reexplain it one on one. It’s repetition for the students who need

it, and the kids who got it could work ahead.”

Hayes teaches the seventh-graders humanities -- English and

history -- in two blocks for almost two hours. She presents a

specific grammar lesson every Wednesday.

She has focused on commas since the beginning of the year. To help

her teach grammar in an interesting way, she bought a book called

“How to Teach Boring Skills.” She also mixes up the presentation of

grammar lessons, sometimes giving it to students to do individually

and sometimes in groups. Sometimes she reads the material aloud.

She approaches the subject as she does her students -- in a

light-hearted, down-to-earth manner.

“She’s not like the old kind of teacher who’s ‘blah, blah, blah’

like in ‘Charlie Brown,’” said Courtney Morisette, 12. “She’s cool

and she understands us.”

While the short-term goal is teaching her students the nuances of

commas, Hayes’ long-term hope is that they leave her classroom armed

with the tools for future achievement.

“I want them to be responsible students and be successful in

life,” Hayes said.