ABSTRACT
Instead of focusing on the things students do not do well, consider the things they are almost doing as writers. As they begin to improve, celebrate the small victories. Writing is a reflection of the writer, and their students are learning and growing in all kinds of ways. Because they are developing as writers, they will inevitably produce errors. When ending punctuation begins showing up all over, rather than wondering why students do not know how to use it, consider what they do know. If periods are at the end of each word, or exclamation points are at the end of each line, or question marks are at the end of the page, these students know a very important truth about ending punctuation: It goes at the end of something. It is fairly obvious what a student needs to know as a writer when there is a period after each word.
