I need grammar help[comma rules/types of sentences]

noir_blood

I'll be honest--this is really embarrassing, but I'm at my wits end and getting more and more frustrated.

For those that have been following my previous threads(Thanks to everyone's that posted btw), I'm currently a student teacher for 9th Grade English. Things are getting better when it comes to students and my confidence, except when it comes to grammar.

Unfortunately, I never was the best grammar student, and my last grammar class was years ago. This is really working against me now. I'm dedicated to getting better, and have spent the last few weekends boning up with their grammar book, but there's still stuff I'm having trouble with. I rather not go to my teacher for help, as she's the type that won't look kindly on this.

Anyways, I was provided with a Language Study worksheet the kids will be doing in a couple of weeks, as a way to come up with lesson plans based around them. I'm hoping someone can help me with the following questions. I hope it doesn't look like I just want answers, instead, if I'm wrong, I want to know why I'm wrong. The way the questions are set up, there's a sentence, followed by some questions about said sentence.

Here's the one I'm having trouble with:

I. When at last a grayish light appeared on the horizon, it revealed a tangle of human shapes, heads sunk deeply between the shoulders, crouching, piled one on top of the other, like a cemetery covered with snow.

How is the underlined comma being used in the above sentence?
A. It connects two independent clauses into a compound sentence.
B. It introduces a phrase that provides further information.
C. It separates adjectives in a series.

I'm stuck on whether it's B. I don't think it's A, because from my understanding, this isn't a compound sentence(those need to have a conjunction, right?). While we're at it, I'm thinking this is a complex sentence, again because the clauses aren't being joined by FANBOYS. And there don't seem to be any adjectives being separated.

Also, does anyone know of a forum that I can go to that's good with tutoring or can check my work? Again, I'm focus not on someone DOING my work for me, but rather that they can check it, and if I'm wrong, they can tell me why I'm wrong.

Lilnoobs

Yeah, it's B. Your process of elimination worked well. Yeah, it's complex.

It's not A because "like a cemetery covered with snow" isn't a complete sentence; therefore, it can not be an independent clause.

metaghost

You say that you're a "student teacher", but are you not currently enrolled in a Teacher Education program? If you are, I would expect your program to have extensive resources through which you can pursue the sort of recurring assistance you're looking for.

And as much as you might feel like your cooperating teacher would look down on you for asking for help, it's in your best interests to work with your school and get whatever professional development you need in order to properly do your job.

EggyToast

You can spend a lot of time breaking apart sentences to get them "just right," but an important skill to teach your students is that it's not wrong to write simply if you're confounded with a complex string of commas and other punctuation.

Here, I'll show you how your example sentence works:

I. When at last a grayish light appeared on the horizon, it revealed a tangle of human shapes, heads sunk deeply between the shoulders, crouching, piled one on top of the other, like a cemetery covered with snow.

The 1st comma sets off the dependent clause. It's dependent because by itself it's not a sentence, and it modifies the independent clause. The simple independent clause is "It revealed a tangle of shapes."

The next commas are all just doing B, introducing more stuff to modify something -- in this case, the tangle of bodies. So we have a tangle of bodies. They are modified by saying that their heads are sunk deep between the shoulders. They are modified further by saying they are crouching. They are again modified by saying they are piled on top of each other. Then, it's arguably whether the last bit modifies the description (piled on top of each other) or the main object (the tangle). Since they're related, it's not important to know exactly which is right, but it's not 100% clear -- which is also why it's not clear to you which it falls under.

Commas should not be used "to show how you breathe" because that doesn't make sense and is a shitty rule. However, your process of elimination doesn't cover placing the comma in the first place. Let's take out the commas:

I. When at last a grayish light appeared on the horizon it revealed a tangle of human shapes heads sunk deeply between the shoulders crouching piled one on top of the other like a cemetery covered with snow.

There are obvious locations that need commas that I'm sure you're noticing. Before "heads," before "crouching," before "piled." However, without the comma before "like" it can still work. If you omit the comma before "like" then the last description turns into a straight simile -- "piled on top like a cemetery." You can fill up pages upon pages of internet grammar forums discussing whether you NEED a comma there, but it depends on the author's intent.

If this sentence is overly confusing, you can rewrite it in many ways. One example with a single comma:

A grayish light appeared on the horizon, revealing a tangle of human shapes with heads sunk deeply between the shoulders and bodies crouching. The remains were piled one on top of the other like a cemetery covered with snow.

Obviously this is prose so there's usually some reason or stylistic choice why it's not written that way, but there's rarely just one way to write a sentence. Not understanding commas is not an excuse to write poor, terse sentences, though. It's better to know the rules and see how they work, and THEN work on rewriting your work to either extend or shorten your thoughts. I see it as two parts -- there's basic grammar, used to put the thought together. Then there's editing grammar, where you modify your thoughts to best match their written form and the overall

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

"Like a cemetery covered with snow" has no subject and so is not an independent clause; A is not correct.