Starting and Ending Moments: A Unique Journey

When do you actually use a comma with and? Today’s 7th and 8th grade English lesson dives into coordinating conjunctions—better known as FANBOYS—and clears up one of the biggest writing mistakes I see: adding a comma before and when you don’t need one. I show my students how and can connect two verbs, two adjectives, or two nouns, and why a comma is only necessary when it links two complete sentences. Once you understand FANBOYS (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So), it becomes much easier to spot t