The Case of the Missing Period...

Don’t you love it when students turn in writing assignments without a single punctuation mark?

Or submit a four-sentence response that is really just one looooong sentence because there is not a period to be found?

I have even had students turn in one-sentence short answers without a period in sight.

Ahhhh.

For me, when students who are perfectly capable do not add ending punctuation, I get a little irked.

I find myself saying...

"Dude, where's your period? This is one loooooong sentence. I can't even make out what you're trying to say here."

When I first started teaching, I thought it was laziness. Like putting a dot at the end of a sentence was too much work.

While this might be the case for some students, there is definitely more at play here.

From my experience, typical students…

1️⃣ Don’t know where to put the period, so they leave it off altogether.

2️⃣ Think it’s rude to put a period at the end of a sentence because of informal texting rules. (In fact, my students think it is so funny I use any type of punctuation in my texts.)

3️⃣ Might not have been held to the expectation of using punctuation. It might be something that their teacher talked about once or twice, but after that nothing was done to make sure students did it consistently. I get it, though! We have 1,000 concepts to teach as ELA teachers, so it is hard to make sure everything put on us is done with fidelity.

What I do to bring back the period-

1️⃣ Have a conversation about the difference between textese (an abbreviated form of language used in texting) and the more formal language that is expected in a school setting. It’s all about knowing your setting.

It’s important that students understand that it’s ok to leave out periods when texting your friends, but not when you’re writing about the symbolism in The Hunger Games for your English class.

📝 You can even have your students practice this!

On whiteboards, have them write a sample text message to their friend about how confusing the homework is. Then, have them switch it up - they will write an email to you about their struggles with the homework. Talk about the differences. Surprisingly, just addressing this with students will get some of them using periods in your class.

2️⃣ Teach sentence structure. It’s not exciting or glamorous, but it needs to be done.

Just think about it. Without understanding how a sentence is structured, how are students supposed to know where to put the period? I feel like due to COVID, a lot of our students missed out on this type of instruction. At the beginning of the year, I try to keep my frustrations on the inside because if they have not had explicit and intentional instruction, it’s really not their fault.

Using bell ringers, I spend a week on simple sentences, then build on it and teach compound sentences, and then round it out with complex sentences. This building block approach helps students understand why we use periods and where they go in a sentence.

3️⃣ Keep your expectations high!

For as long as we are doing the sentence structure mini lessons (it usually takes about four weeks), anytime we write something, I have my students circle or highlight their periods.

I always laugh when a student realizes they don’t have anything to circle. I make them go back, reread, and add periods where needed. I’m careful not to be mean, judgmental, or condescending. I say something along the lines of, “Uh oh! I think that means you forgot to add your periods. Why don’t you read back over that really quickly and put them where they go? If you’re not sure, I’m here to help!”

Also, if I walk by a student while they are writing and realize they are missing their ending punctuation on their paper, I remind them to add it.

After weeks of explicit instruction on sentence structure and reminders, I let students know that if they turn in an assignment without correct ending punctuation, it is minus five points automatically. I just build the expectation into my rubric. (Of course, always modify for students with special needs and accommodations.)

As long as you stay consistent, most students will rise to your expectations.