Jennifer. J. Chow

Punctuation is Everywhere!!

When my brother was in high school, he took a photography class that stretched his creativity. One of the assignments was to find objects that formed the letters A to Z. It was fascinating to see common items transformed into letter shapes.

I decided to do a quick repeat of this idea—but with punctuation. Here’s what I found:

Backslash \

Colon :

Dash –

Exclamation Point !

Period .

Question Mark ?

Going through this experiment reminded me that we can discover new angles on everyday objects. And, surprisingly, once I started, I could see punctuation patterns easily. Which also indicates to me that writer brains are always working! 😉

Reader question/task: What’s your favorite punctuation mark and why? Bonus: Look around you and report back if you find a punctuation mark in an object near you!

45 thoughts on “Punctuation is Everywhere!!”

  1. Wow! Jennifer! This is so creative and so fun! Just imagine two single banana facing each other (with the curving side facing the other curving side) – that would make a parenthesis. Maybe I can have this activity as a brain teaser with my students!

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        2. Learning something new every day! Would be a great Jeopardy! question. I was informed yesterday they’re hiring a writer. You need to do a test where you come up with categories/answers. Hmm… (I’m kidding.)

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          1. the hubbs is interested in the job, but he refuses to move to California. That would ne the perfect job for him, since that was his mental therapy after the coma.

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  7. I love this so much, Jen! I remember there was a poster of the alphabet via photographs of oddball things that was popular back in the ’70s when I was in college, and I loved staring at it so much.

    One of the main reasons I love doing photography is that it makes us look at common objects familiar places in a new way.

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  8. I love the em dash, and I don’t care what anybody says! I’ve been rocking it for decades now, well before AI came around.

    But can we talk about that pan? It is so cute!!

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  9. Semi colon because it indicates more to follow on the same topic; kind of like the way I speak and think. I see a long thin sand bottle a student gave me years ago and reminds me of an exclamation point. This was a good exercise this morning.

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  10. It’s the ellipsis … that always intrigues me. More to come, it says in its own way.

    Totally agree – what a great way to get our minds exercised.

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  11. I should have used this in my classroom when I was teaching English to 10th graders. I focused on vocabulary, grammar and literature. But I did get them to do journals which I assigned topics for them to interpret in their own way. They wrote in them, drew in them (I had them use sketchbooks and they had 4 due a month) cut out magazine photos, took photos, etc. Some of them were great. When I taught art along with English, I had them write and illustrate children’s books. Some were good enough to publish if I had had the know how back in the late 1970s.

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    I have often wondered. The problem is that having taught for 38 1/2 years, I would not remember many of those names. I had to learn 150 names per year (sometimes per semester). And I usually did that in less that 2 weeks each time. Multiply that by the years and that is a lot to recognize. Though I probably would remember if I saw the name.

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  15. Not sure I have a favorite punctuation mark. I was going to claim the clue I had on my screen for Jeopardy! had a punctuation mark in it, but it doesn’t!

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