This workshop was set for an advanced class that has only been using commas and full stops in their writing. It is a way to help the students use their punctuation properly through cooperative exercises, authentic materials, fun workshops, and to expand what they already know through language awareness.

The workshop consisted of twelve workstations situated around the room. Each workstation had a different topic, from commas to colons, and the formats were ranging from worksheets to activities that require getting up and moving around. The exercises covered the necessary forms of punctuation in English. We had 50 minutes to walk around and pick exercises, working in groups with a timer set to eight minutes for each exercise (although it probably should have been set to five!)

At the end of the workshop, we talked about how we would use this as future educators. We thought about utilizing these exercises separately in class instead of a workshop, starting with workstation G (the video of Victor Borg). This would hopefully get the students excited about using punctuation and would be a silly introduction to punctuation, while still being on topic. We thought about starting light by looking at periods and commas, which is apparently something they already know. We would group together A and E and B and K because we feel the exercises relate to one another and can scaffold one another. About 2/3 of the way through these exercises, it would be good to do the kinesthetic pronunciation activity to once again get the students active.

By Willow, Gerry, Sara, and Aaron