Essay - Call of the Wild

Repeat of yesterday. No homework but to finish your essay.

Final Essay for The Call of the Wild

Your final essay is due on Friday. Think about the various themes that we talked about today in class.

Survival of the Fittest
The Power of Instinct
The Laws of Civilization and Wilderness

Choose one and find three examples from the novel that give evidence that this a theme from the novel.

See the Web Quest for full directions.

Compare and Contrast

The essay from Chapter 5 is due tomorrow.

Tomorrow is also the day of your comma quiz. Need more practice? Try this website.

Commas, Part V

To separate introductory clauses and phrases
If every automobile in the country were a light shade of red, we’d live in a pink-car nation.

According to some experts, solar-powered cars will soon be common.

When people start buying cars that use alternative energy sources, we will become less dependent on oil as a fuel source.


In compound sentences
Many students enjoy working on computers, so teachers are finding new ways to use them in the classroom.

Computers can be valuable in education, but many schools cannot afford enough of them.

Commas, Part IV

Commas 4

To set off dialogue

Use commas to set off the exact words of a speaker from the rest of the sentence.

The firefighter said, “We will try to keep the fire from spreading.”

The fireman said that they are containing the fire.
Do not use a comma or quotation marks for an indirect quote


In direct address
Zoe, do you know the answer?


To set off interjections

No kidding, you mean that one teacher has to manage a class of 40 students?

Uh-huh, and that teacher has other classes that size.


To set off explanatory phrases
English, the language computers speak worldwide, is also the most widely used language in science and medicine.

More than 750 million people, about an eighth of the world’s population, speak English as a foreign language.

Commas, Part III

To set off Appositives (renames a noun or pronoun)

The capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, has a population of almost 643,000.
Nicosia renames the capital of Cyprus

Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, is about half the size of Connecticut.
an island in the Mediterranean renames Cyprus

The Mediterranean island Cyprus is about half the size of Connecticut
Cyprus is needed to clarify which Mediterranean island - so no comma is needed


To separate equal adjectives
Comfortable, efficient cars are becoming more important to drivers.
comfortable and efficient both describe cars

Some automobiles run on clean, renewable sources of energy.
clean and renewable describe energy



**Please finish Commas 3 tonight for homework.

Can't get enough of Call of the Wild? You can listen online.

Commas, Part I & II

Commas 1
Between items in a series

Chinese, English and Hindi are the three most widely used languages in the world.

Being comfortable with technology, working well with others, and knowing another language are important skills for today’s workers.


To keep numbers clear

Use commas to distinguish hundreds, thousands, millions, and so on

More than 104,000 people live in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica.

The population of the entire country of Liechtenstein is only 29,000.


In dates and addresses
On September 11, 2006, The World Trade Center in New York was attacked.

The school’s address is 10 Borrett Road, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong.



Commas 2

To set off non-restrictive phrases and clauses

People get drinking water from surface water or groundwater, which makes up only one percent of the earth’s water supply.
which makes up only one percent of the earth’s water supply is additional information – it is non-restrictive

Groundwater that is free from pollutants is rare.
that is free from pollutants is needed to complete the meaning of the basic sentence.


To set off titles or initials

Melanie Prokat, M.D., is our family doctor.

In the phone book she is listed as Prokat, M.



To set off interruptions

Interruptions can be identified through these tests:
You can leave them out of the sentence without changing the meaning
You can place them other places in the sentence without changing its meaning.

Our school, as we all know, is becoming overcrowded.

My history class, for example, has 42 students in it.

There are, indeed about 1,000 people in my school.

The building, however, has room for only 850 students.