by Donna | Mar 7, 2013
I am adding a new little feature to LL 365–the holidays for that month capitalized and punctated properly (well, relatively so!). Many holidays come and people wonder, “Do you cap Day in Thanksgiving Day?” “Do you show possession to Fool in April Fools Day?” etc. etc.
So…for the next few weeks…a list of holidays punctuated and capitalized as correctly as I found! Note that different style guides (i.e. Associated Press vs. Modern Language Association, etc.) choose to punctuate and capitalize lesser known (National Kool-Aid Day!) or newer things (i.e. email vs. e-mail) differently. In those cases, it is truly a style preference rather than a hard and fast rule. So….Happy April…I mean, happy April! 🙂 And definitely, Happy Easter!
All Fool’s Day/April Fools Day
Daylight Savings Time
Palm Sunday
Passover
Good Friday
Easter
Easter Monday
by Donna | Feb 26, 2013
Comma Clues!!!
Tomorrow’s COMMA CLUE is going to be about subordinate clause openers…so I’ll leave you with this little jingle to sing to yourself if you have insomnia tonight (instead of counting sheep!):
When you start a sentence with a subordinate clause,
Put the comma in when you hear the pause!
And then my sweet middle school students, knowing my love for the ballroom, all rise up from their seats and shout “CHA CHA” at the end of it…I have the greatest students! 🙂
by Donna | Feb 26, 2013
If you are a writing teacher, use your feedback on students’ papers to point out advanced techniques done correctly. Sometimes students write without realizing that they are doing some cool things in their writing.
For example, here are some comments I have just made on a couple of students’ papers in order to even use grading time as teaching time:
*Superb compound-complex sentence!
*Another great appositive
*Love this CS; CA, CS
*Thanks for remembering that periods always go inside closing quotation marks in the US
*Great details…I appreciate you putting at least two pieces of information in each sentence!
*Love this informative opening paragraph with its strong link to the body and its MYSTERY!
*Triff!
*Cool vocab in this sentence!
*Perfect personification! 🙂
*Love this allieration!
Happy teaching, learning, and grammar today, LL friends!
by Donna | Feb 26, 2013
We have a lot of announcements here at Training for Triumph, um, I mean, Character Ink! So many that I will enumerate them for you!
1. First off, our name change: As of this spring, we will be changing from Training for Triumph to Character Ink! We feel that the new name more represents what we are about–publishing materials with a character base, including our Christian parenting seminar (which is also getting a name change!).
2. Rather than having a lengthy monthly (or quarterly in the case of the last few months!) newsletter, we are changing to quick weekly updates (like this one!). These will include announcements (like our March sale is starting this week! and our next parenting seminar is in Bluffton, IN this weekend!), as well as recent articles, posts, and thoughts from our blogs and FaceBook pages.
3. Our March sale for CQLA is starting this weekend! Throughout the month of March, all CQLA books (all colors, all levels) will be $59 rather than the normal $79 price. Spread the word! Tell your friends!
4. Our Christian parenting seminar is also getting a name change: Raising Kids With Character (RKWC)! The blog (Positive Parenting 365) will soon get this new name, as will the upcoming book that goes along with the seminar. RKWC is a Christian parenting seminar that starts out with the Five W’s and H of Character Training, then moves into Parenting Paradigms (how what you believe about parenting affects how you parent), then into Essentials of Parenting With Character (explanations, priorities, time, commuication, and more). Then comes the fun part: character qualities, one by one, and tips and tricks on instilling these in your children. It is for parents of kids ages birth to twelve or so. (A follow up seminar is in the works–Raising Tweens and Teens With Character!) We have had several opportunities to present the seminar (and improve it!) over the past two years in our area, and we would love to bring it to your church, small group, homeschool group, etc. It is not homeschool specific, so it is a good opportunitiy for homeschoolers to serve their church in general by offering it. Give us a call for more info–and watch these weekly updates!
5. We have several avenues to reach us now:
a. Our website (free samples of our curriculum and more!):
b. Character Ink blog–just starting this to put homeschooling articles and newsletters up– https://characterinkblog.com/
c. Character Ink FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/#!/characterinkcompany
d. Raising Kids With Character blog (still old name): https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/
e. Raising Kids With Character FaceBook page (still old name): https://www.facebook.com/#!/charactertrainingfromtheheart
f. Language Lady blog–daily language arts, grammar, and writing tips for teachers, students, parents, and professionals: https://languagelady365.blogspot.com/
g. Language Lady FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/#!/languagelady365
LIKE us, follow us….we appreciate it!
Donna Reish
P.S. All of our blog posts are linked each time on the FB pages, so if you follow the FB pages, you won’t miss the blog posts, articles, updates, etc.!
by Donna | Feb 20, 2013
I try to use mnemonics, tricks, songs, and jingles to teach parts of speech, homophones, and any other grammar and usage tips that I can. Students (of all ages, including adults!) often remember usage better when a trick or tip is applied.
One of my students’ favorite tricks is for the confusing word pair (sometimes considered homophones, though they do have slightly different pronunciations) conscience/conscious:
The student’s conscience bothered him because he tried to con the science teacher.
He wasn’t conscious enough to enjoy the delicious treat.
In today’s assignment, my students had to write sentences using conscience and conscious (one sentence each). My amazingly clever students had fun with this! Three of them used both words in one sentence and included the “trick” in that sentence too!
1. I conned the science teacher while I was conscious, and my conscience bothered me.
2. He wasn’t conscious of the fact that he conned the science teacher; once he realized he had, his conscience bothered him.
3. He had a guilty conscience after he consciously conned the science teacher.
by Donna | Feb 18, 2013
Happy Presidents’ Day. Or is that Presidents Day? Or Presidents’ Day?
Well….it depends on which expert you ask! Here is the run down:
1. It is NOT President’s Day
a. President’s denotes one President…and this holiday honors Washington and Lincoln both…as well as all presidents
b. President’s Day says that it is the day that belongs to one President (singular)
c. It follows the rule of writing the noun first (President) then if the word does NOT end in s, put apostrophe s (President’s Day)
2. Some say it is Presidents’ Day
a. The Gregg Reference Manual (my favorite handbook) cites it as such
b. This denotes many presidents all owning one day (or at least Lincoln and Washington)
c. It follows the rule of writing the noun first (Presidents) then if the word ends in s, put an apostrophe on the outside of the s
d. This is the correct way to show possession of one thing to more than one “owner”—or any noun that ends in an s (glass’ smudges).
3. Some say it is Presidents Day
a. The Associated Press Stylebook cites is as such
b. This method does not denote possession, but rather uses the word President as an adjective (actually a “proper adjective” in that it is an adjective made from a proper noun–some of the time–we will not even get into whether it is (President) or isn’t (president) in this post!)
c. This is like saying that, that is a Grisham book (as opposed to a book that Grisham owns–Grisham’s book), and it is certainly not incorrect
P.S. Capitalize president when referring to a certain president or the holiday in question!
So there you have it! More subjectivity in our English language. Happy Presidents’ Day! And Happy Presidents Day!
