If a period is a stop sign, then what kind of traffic flow is created by other marks? The comma is a speed bump; the semicolon is what a driver education teacher calls a “rolling stop”; the parenthetical expression is a detour; the colon is a flashing yellow light that announces something important up ahead; the dash is a tree branch in the road.
Interpretation
This quote uses traffic signs and signals as metaphors for different punctuation marks to illustrate their functions in writing.
Roy Peter Clark creatively compares punctuation marks to traffic signs and road conditions, suggesting that just as these signs guide drivers through the roadways, punctuation guides readers through written texts. Each mark plays a distinct role, indicating pauses, transitions, and emphasis that shape the reader's understanding and experience of the written message.
In practice
In a writing workshop, I used this quote to demonstrate the importance of punctuation.
In this modern world where activity is stressed almost to the point of mania, quietness as a childhood need is too often overlooked. Yet a child's need for quietness is the same today as it has always been--it may even be greater--for quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.
Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.
By its very definition, civic responsibility means taking a healthy role in the life of one's community. That means that classroom lessons should be complemented by work outside the classroom. Service-learning does just that, tying community service to academic learning.
If education is beaten by training, civilization dies.
They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.
A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy.
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