When Grammar Is Animated, Usage Sticks

Source: TED Ed

We are huge fans of TED Ed: Lessons Worthing Sharing. The short, animated videos on a variety of topics deliver the perfect dose of information to help students with content areas. Because educators write the scripts for these animations, they hit that sweet spot of just enough to make the point while engaging the eye as well. We also routinely publish some of these videos that don't necessarily fit into our curriculum on our Humanities Enrichment Tumblr. As a result, our students have become big fans as well.

This summer, TED published a host of videos about grammar that we thought were extremely helpful with our learners. Two deal with punctuation, and the others talk about word usage. Emma Bryce is the author of three of the four, and she has a real knack for simplifying tricky grammatical problems.

When To Use Apostrophes 

In the first video, entitled "When To Use Apostrophes," educator Laura McClure reviews the sometimes complicated usage. The visuals make it easy for learners to understand.

How To Use A Semicolon

Emma Bryce's's video called "How To Use A Semicolon" explains the correct way to use the semi-colon, and the animator, Mark Storer, creates a playful character that knocks out periods as if in an arcade game. She "clarifies best practices for the semi-confusing semicolon."

When To Use Me, Myself, and I

In Bryce's second video, she addresses "When To Use Me, Myself, and I." Once again, she skillfully clarifies the different role each one plays in a sentence, even though all three refer to the same thing.

How Misused Modifiers Can Hurt Your Writing

The last Bryce video, called "How Misused Modifiers Can Hurt Your Writing," follows in the same vein as the others. She uses her expertise to explain how misplaced modifiers create ambiguity. The animation makes it easy to see how words, phrases, and clauses in the wrong places create problems instead of adding helpful information.