Years of research and demonstrate that traditional methods of grammar instruction simply do not work; one common complaint about grammar instruction from its lack of context-its reliance, for example, on abstract rules and examples. These stark examples clarify grammatical ideas; however, they fail to , including its grammar and punctuation, in action, in the real-life texts that . By incorporating the texts that students read or compose on their own, this lesson highlights the choice of the semicolon to create rhetorical effect in an audience, how one author uses the seemingly insignificant punctuation mark to his ideas and urges students to follow the model in their own writing; only by exploring language in context, written for a particular time and place, can students the subtle ways that punctuation affects meaning.