Well, we were working with possessives in my sophomore English classes, and there isn't much "Ta Da" about possessives, or so I thought. Possessives basically follow three rules, so we worked on a technique that forced students to show me their thinking process, not just how to make a word possessive. I wanted them to tell me three things: is the word singular or plural, how would you fix it, and how do you know you are right?
What I found was that words like this (girls') were causing issues with my students. I had four students tell me that they have never seen a word end in an apostrophe because they thought it wass always supposed to be ('s). What a conversation we had. I spent about 5 minutes convincing kids they weren't dumb if they had never really noticed this before AND thanking them for letting me know they didn't know this existed.
I spent the next few minutes of class talking about my husband's old 1985 Dodge Ram Charger. It had a 7-inch lift kid, 35 inch tires, a KC light strip, a rusted out floor board, a hot-wired ignition, and a dual exhaust. Prior to knowing my husband, I thought Ram Chargers were like Ford Broncos. I am here to tell you that they are not. I can spot a Ram Charger from a block away. I just never knew what I was looking at, but any Ford or Dodge fan will tell you that there is a difference. When those "ah ha" moments happen, be it with possessive in English or the body type of old trucks, you never forget them.
My students who had never seen a plural possessive end in only an apostrophe probably learned more about a Ram Charger than they ever hoped to know, but they will also probably start seeing those types of words in their reading more often because they know what it is they are seeing. Ta da!
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