Living the punctuation marks in life

I saw a piece of paper laying on a church table a few weeks ago that referred to self-reflecting about how we live our lives between the punctuation marks of life.

I don’t know who the paper belonged to or what its purpose was, but I enjoyed thinking about the topic. My mind eventually wandered to thinking about how the young students in my class not only live between the punctuation marks, but they seem to live their lives as if they were punctuation marks.

Take, for example, the children who live their lives as if they were exclamation marks.

Sentences that may seem rather dull and mundane to other students are full of excitement and life to these exclamation-mark students. Other students may be content to write, “The dog barked.” For them, it is just a common sentence, with a common dog, deserving of the common period.

For the exclamation mark students, though, the dogs in their sentences are so happy and excited to bark a story as they imaginatively jump about, frantically wagging their happy tails, that the students write, “The dog barked!” and would do so in all capital letters if they think about it soon enough. For some students, “The dog barked!!!!!” with such excitement that it is worth about five exclamation marks. (I am glad that dog doesn’t live next door to me!)

A humdrum sentence like, “The sky is blue,” would be anything but humdrum to the exclamation children. In their imaginations, they are so happy that the sky isn’t raining or gray or ominous-looking that they write the sentence with great excitement and want to shout it out to the world that “The sky is blue!” As soon as they begin writing, they begin planning what fun things they can do on this blue-sky day.

These exclamation-mark children even walk with exclamation marks. In fact, they often bounce. Their exclamation mark personalities make it difficult for them to walk in a line. In fact, the physical formation of a question mark, with its curvy part, would be much more fitting to be the exclamation mark.

An exclamation mark, with its totally straight line, seems out of character for exclamation mark children. The students who bounce or dance their way into the classroom and through the Pledge of Allegiance are exclamation-mark children.

The question-mark children seem to be either a bit unsure about things or they want a lot more clarification. In the dictation sentence, “The boy ran,” they begin wondering if the boy really ran, or if he was perhaps just jogging. Maybe, in their minds, the boy almost always walked, and now they question, “The boy ran?” as if it makes them wonder why all of a sudden he was doing something out of the ordinary. In the sentence, “Her mother drove by with a smile on her face,” the question mark children might question if it was really her mother, or if it was really a smile, or if she actually drove when she usually rode her bicycle or walked.

Question-mark children do not take things at face value. They want more details. Even if the class schedule is posted, the question-mark children wonder, “What’s next?” “How long will it last?” “What’s after that?” They are either verbally or mentally filled with questions about many parts of their day. “Why did you choose blue paper?” “How many more minutes until recess?” “Which way should I fold the paper?” “Why don’t the other students ask more questions?”

Other students live much of their lives in the zone of the period. They’re rather content and accept things as they are. They’re generally even-tempered and don’t get overly frustrated, flustered, or excited about most things. The period children are usually well-focused and dependable. When going out to recess, these children walk from place to place and generally stay in a straight line. Other students enjoy being friends with period children because they are accepting and rather consistent.

Period children write things like, “The wind blew on that dark and stormy night.” They write statements that work well together. They seem to write from the whole picture, and create factual and well-reasoned paragraphs and essays.

There are also ellipses children who think… and think… and think… and the comma children who like to pause before doing things, the quotation children who have much to say, and the apostrophe students who condense their speech and use few words.

Punctuation marks are important components of good literature. They work together for the good of the whole. They are all necessary, and none is more important than another. It is similar with the punctuation children. They all work together to make an interesting and well-functioning classroom.

Diana Sloan-Basner teaches second-grade at Birchtree Charter School. She enjoys the combination of all of the punctuation children and appreciates how they all work together to make a wonderful classroom story.