I was just working with Max, and worked out an exercise to help him learn sentence boundaries and where to place commas. Below find an email I sent to a student. I've removed all the periods and the commas. If you want some extra work on sentence boundaries commas, try to replace all the commas and periods in the following set of prose. Next week, I'll post same piece of the writing with the punctuation put back in, and you can compare your work with mine. Remember, this work is voluntary.
Here's the text:
There's a balance you and the rest of the class are trying to find between worrying so much the anxiety paralyzes and as you say not caring enough I suspect you care more than you would like to let on; otherwise you wouldn't want to go into politics
Good politicians are good people and usually they are better people than those who don't go into public service Look at Obama Here's a man who seems to genuinely care and wants to make a difference He's been as near as I can tell a good politician and he still gets attached not because of his beliefs but because the retired minister of his church said things which make some Americans nervous and the things Wight said makes great copy when taken out of context People who don't care would find another career one where their every action isn't over analyzed and where folks wouldn't deride them their believes and each decision in public I think it was Eisenhower who said "Tomorrow I could walk on water across to Potomac and the headlines would read 'President Can't Swim'" Don't take me for a Pollyanna I understand that some of the motivation for going into politics might be a desire for power Some has to do with a desire for status respect and public praise For some it might be graft but I would like to believe than folks like you also go into politics because they want to make a difference and because they understand how to bring people together to work toward the common good These last are the kind of leaders I always hope and try to vote for
From folks I know who have worked on presidential and state level campaigns I know most politicians are smarter than the run of the mill citizen Sam Erwin used to have this bit where he's go on about being "A country lawyer from North Carolina" but he used this guise to run the hearings which resulted in deposing a standing president Many politicians don't ever let on how smart they are because they know it would alienate the average Joe and Jane Yet these are the same folks who weekly and monthly manage to meet and gain identification with more people than most of us meet in a lifetime One doesn't develop such skills from an attitude of not caring enough to learn how to learn Think here of all a public leader has to know She has to know people She has to stay up on the issues She has to have the ability to quickly learn the *details* of every issue of concern to a majority of her constituents and to run a staff which will help her She has to have the ability to run a campaign and to make strategic decisions which balance the public good and her ability to retain power and continue to do good Finally she has to run with the big dogs that is those equally polished communicators and equally smart People with such skills don't just happen They cultivate and acquire these skills though a lifetime of practice and they don't believe everything will just "work out" They've got too many people who are willing to actively work to make sure things don't work out to believe they will
The upshot here is if you really want to be a politician there's substantial motivation to learn to how to plan and to learn and practice every skill you can now that is when the stakes aren't as high as they will become Develop these habits of mind now and you stand a chance of realizing your dream later This doesn't mean saddling yourself with anxiety; it means you have to develop the discipline to control how you think Continually motivate yourself As you say the world may work out for most of the time; otherwise It does for most of us; otherwise we wouldn't be in college but eventually you're going to run up against situations and opposition where the "take it as it comes" sans planning will bite you in the--umm-hand
Now the question becomes what habits do you need to cultivate to develop the abilities you'll need later Give it some thought and repost This time don't sell yourself short Your plans are noble and I suspect you're a better person than you let on
So begin thinking longer term Set aside some time to think through to consequences because just because you haven't experienced negative consequences there are consequences to *everything* one does both good and bad
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