The Life and Times of

The Serial Comma

It’s all about the power of
3!
Lists
Can have more than three items, but most often lists
contain the magical 3
It’s balanced because we have heard it so often:
 The Three Little Pigs
 Three Blind Mice

 Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Notice
His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol, and age. --Maya
Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

What do you notice about the above sentence?

What are the commas doing?
What if she had just said, “The room smells good?” or
“The room smells like stuff?”
Imitate
Imitation lets us try on some things powerful writers do that
we may never have tried.
Here is Jeff Anderson’s imitation of Maya Angelou’s
sentence. Let’s compare:
Hector’s room smelled of gym socks, Hot Cheetos, and lies.
--Jeff Anderson’s writer’s notebook
His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol, and age.

What is the first thing he did like Angelou?

Imitate (cont’d)
Named a place
Used words ‘smell of’
Named three things
YOU TRY!

_____________smells of ____________, ____________,

and _________________.
Celebrate!
Share your imitations
Notice and imitate:
Her cleats, shin pads, and sweats were in her backpack,
slung over her shoulder and heavy with homework. --Peter
Abrahams, Down the Rabbit Hole (2006)
I walked back to my room wet and dried myself with a pair
of jeans. I put on long underwear, pants, a long-sleeved
shirt, shoes, and my parka. I stood in front of the heater.
--Willy Vlautin, The Motel Life (2007)
Then I heard a scrape, a thud, and a yelp. --Byars, Duffy, and
Meyers, The SOS File (2004)
Invitation to Write
The place holds an odor I love. Of wood and stale sweat
and chewing gum and more sweat and of the tough rubber
skins of all the basketballs ever dribbled here. I breathe
deep to take this inside me. --Tony Johnston, Any Small Goodness (2003)

In your writing try to use at least one serial comma. OR,

choose a previously written piece and re-enter your
writing and add it in.
Invitation to Write (cont’d)
What did we learn about writing from Maya Angelou and
Tony Johnston?

This passage reminds me why we write. Listen for any

words or phrases that stick with you and write them in
your notebook.

Codell continues the “Let me tell you something” lead

with each chapter. Let me tell you something about my
neighborhood or school or mom.
Invitation to Write (cont’d)
You get to pick whether your let me tell you something is
about a person, place, or something of your choosing.
The only rule is that you start with the line ‘Let me tell
you something about ____________________.’
Invitation to Revise
Reenter your writing
Reread: look for places that could use more detail –
specific words that stick with the reader, sensory details
like smells. Find a place that needs more detail and make
a big asterisk right above that.
Close your eyes. Think about the place or person you are
describing.
Make a list of at least three things you pictured, smelled,
or remembered.
Invitation to Combine
Recombine these sentences:
I have hair the color of carrots in an apricot glaze.
My skin is fair and clear where it isn’t freckled.
My eyes are like summer storms.

The way we combine sentences needs to make sense and include

the information.

I have hair the color of carrots in an apricot glaze, skin fair and
clear where it isn’t freckled, and eyes like summer storms. -- Polly
Horvath, Everything on a Waffle (2004)
Invitation to Combine (cont’d)
What do you notice about this sentence:
A single empty chair waited for Rowanne, and a thought
whispered from the back of Hector’s mind, but it was
drowned out by the sounds of scraping, shifting chairs.
--Lynne Rae Perkins, Criss Cross (2005)
Let’s uncombine this sentence.
Invitation to Combine (cont’d)
The sky is clear blue, a light breeze blows from the west,
and pale green water sloshes against the side of the rickety
old rowboat that brought us here. --Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the
Meaning of Life (2006)
Jared Grace took out his red shirt, turned it inside out, and
put it on backward. He tried to do the same with his
jeans, but that was beyond him. --DiTerlizzi and Black, The
Spiderwick Chronicles: Lucinda’s Secret (2003)
I had three places I wanted to visit, six things I wanted to
make, and two conversations I wanted to have before
dinnnertime. --Katherine Hannigan, Ida B (2006)
Invitation to Edit
What do you notice in terms of craft and mechanics:
His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol, and age.
 What has changed?

His room smelled of cooked grease Lysol, and age.

 What has changed?

His room smelled.

 What has changed?

His room smelled of cooked grease, lysol, and age

 What has changed?
His room smell of cooked grease, Lysol, and age.
 What has changed?
His room smelled off cooked grease, Lysol, and age.

His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol, and age.

Think about why the writer chose the way he wrote the
sentence. Reread your own writing and notice where you used
the same craft.
Extending the Invitation
The gym smells like melting hair spray and aftershave.
--Tony Johnston, Andy Small Goodness (2003)
Revise the sentence, which describes the school dance
held in the gym, using commas in a series. You can add or
change detail as long as you rewrite the sentence using a
serial comma.
Extending the Invitation (cont’d)
I close my fingers around the cool, smooth silver. --Elisa
Carbone, Blood in the River: James Town 1607 (2006)
Revise to reflect a serial comma pattern.
Sometimes lists are done in different ways: with bullets,
outlining, or numbering, like the example from Becoming
Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan (2004):
Chewing on the end of my pencil, I got back to my list,
which Gram said was one of the things I did best. I had
all kinds of lists in my notebook, the shortest being
“Things I am Good At,” which consisted of 1) Soap
carving, 2)Worrying, and 3) Making lists. There was my
“Regular and Everyday Worries” list, which included
1)Gram was going to die because she was old, 2) Owen
would never be right, 3) I will forget something if I don’t
make a list, 4) I will lose my lists, and 5) Abominations. I
made lists of splendid words, types of rocks, books I read,
and unusual names.
ACTIONS in a series
Agreement
Tense
Parallelism
 Making things match
 In a list of actions, each verb should be in the same tense: He

read a book, wrote an essay, and cleaned the garage