Good grammar according to Evie and Jane

Typically hypocritical, I love to edit but hate to be edited. Re-reading my own blogs causes me pain as I inevitably stumble upon a spelling or grammatical error that, to me, invalidates my entire message and exposes me as a writing fraud. Teaching the parts of speech is so much fun but I'm still trying to decipher split infinitives and often unintentionally leave my particles dangling. How embarrassing. The writing process is fascinating as the brain must sift through thousands and thousands of words in search of literary gold. Yesterday, one of my summer school scholars had returned from a week of camp to revisit a developing paragraph on the traditional life of the Iroquois. When she encountered a brain block, I helpfully prompted her, saying, "Think of something you caught at camp." Her forehead wrinkled as she pondered, "A cold?"

Although I tread lightly around plural possessives, I adore apostrophes and will not abide the public mistreatment of punctuation.  The other day, friends and I were out for a little treat and passed a pizza shop sidewalk sign, advertising the day's specials: two pizza's for the price of one. I began to hyperventilate. Glancing furtively around, I crept up to the sign and discreetly wiped the chalked apostrophe off before scurrying away. Later, my friend, Evie spoke up. "Amy, Jane and I have an ELA-related question." Uh-oh, I sometimes get in over my head during these discussions. "Shoot," I said, semi-confidently. "Is is proper grammar to use the phrase 'these ones'?" Jane asked. Good question. The word these is a plural pronoun and those of you familiar with Schoolhouse Rock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koZFca8AkT0) will remember that a pronoun takes the place of a noun which, in this case, is the word ones. Although I don't know if it's wrong, it does seem unnecessary. "Let's think of a scenario where it might work," I suggested. After some deliberation (and snacking), Evie suddenly brightened. "What about this?" she said, "Imagine there are several piles of one dollar bills and someone asks which pile has the counterfeit bill in it?" Jane smiled, reaching across the table for the stack of imaginary cash. "These ones," she shouted, waving the magical money in the air. We digested this scenario for a moment. Score! Intellectual table conversation is so gratifying. I learned a lot. But the most important thing that I learned is, if you need any grammar tips, ask Jane and Evie.