Reading aloud a passage without its punctuation included can effectively illustrate how much punctuation changes the meaning of a sentence. You can read the chosen passage yourself or assign students to read passages in groups or alone. They’ll find that they don’t know when to take a breath and when something is intended as a question. At the end of this exercise, discuss the impact of the lack of punctuation with students.
This activity involves reading a passage aloud and studying the effect of the punctuation in sentences. This time, instead of removing the punctuation entirely, students will examine how moving and altering the punctuation can affect how sentences read. For example, students can look at how adding an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence changes the meaning. They should first try to read the same sentence with the exclamation mark and then with a full stop at its end. The urgency the punctuation creates can then be discussed. Another exercise could involve moving commas around in a long sentence to see how the passage reads, depending on the location of the commas.
For this activity, give each student a selection of similar sentences. These sentences should contain several instances of punctuation. However, all but one sentence should show an example or two of incorrect punctuation. The students’ task is to identify which sentence is correct, thus developing their ability to spot how punctuation works on the printed page.
In this activity, each student is again presented with a selection of examples, this time in longer passages of 50 to 70 words. Each passage describes an event, place or person, but the punctuation is entirely missing. Students must read through the passage and identify where the punctuation is to go. Their first task is to break down the passages into distinct sentences, a process that illustrates how a lack of punctuation can create confusing passages.
Collect signs or posters containing punctuation errors. If possible, the materials you use should contain errors that alter the meaning to something the author didn’t intend. On inspecting the material, students should identify what should be changed to create the intended message.