Week 31 Using a Colon and Bullet Points in a list

Learning Intentions

To extend pupil’s knowledge of punctuation.

To know that lists can be vertical and use commas, numbers, letters and bullet points.

Introduction

Punctation helps us to make sense of the words we use.

we already know hoed to use punctuation in our writing: full stops, question marks, speech marks, exclamation marks, commas, apostrophes and hyphens.

In your literacy book make a list of 6 colours, 6 months, 6 animals and 6 fish. Remember that we use commas to separate the items in a list, except for the last item, when ‘and’ or ‘or’ is used instead; the commas allow a short pause to help the reader separate one idea from another. 

Main Learning

There is another way of making lists. We can write them vertically down the page rather than horizontally along a line. This can help make the whole list easier to read at a glance.

Vertical lists are most used in presentations and for practical reasons like shopping lists.

Look at how bullet points are used in this presentation about ‘smoking’

A list always needs an introduction. In normal writing, the introduction should be able to stand alone as a simple sentence. Look at the examples below.Notice that a vertical list’s introduction ends with a punctuation mark called a colon ( two small dots, one above the other). A colon is a pause longer than a comma but not as long as a full stop.

Now write your own sentence 

We knew who would win the game: the Antrim hurlers.

He wanted to see three cities in Italy: Rome, Florence, and Venice.