the first thanksgiving
adapted by rick shur from
Directions: Rewrite this story, and put in all necessary periods, commas and capital letters.
Above each comma, put the number of the comma rule (1 through 7) that gives the reason for including the comma. The number of periods needed in each paragraph is given in parentheses.
- Conjunction (and, or, so but) connecting sentences to each other
- Transition words before the subject
- Subordinate clause coming before the main clause
- Insert (words giving extra information)
- Relative Clause (who, which, where clause with a verb in it)
- Separating two elements (March, 1950)
- Separating items in a list (bananas, pears, apples and grapes)
according to their leader william bradford the pilgrims left europe for america in order to teach christianity to the native americans the indians they did not leave in order to make a better life for themselves or to escape religious persecution (2 periods)
the pilgrims were trying to land in virginia to join other english settlers who had arrived there earlier but their ship went off course and they landed far north of there on plymouth rock massachusetts on december 11 1620 their first winter was devastating weakened by the seven-week crossing they came down with pneumonia and consumption they began to die rapidly they lost 46 of the original 102 people who sailed on the mayflower (5 periods)
the pilgrims obviously needed help and that help came from an english-speaking indian of the wampanoag nation squanto squanto decided to stay with the pilgrims for the next few months and teach them how to survive he brought them food and skins he taught them how to grow new vegetables and how to build indian-style houses he educated the pilgrims on poisonous plants medicine how to get sap from maple trees how to use fish for fertilizer and dozens of other important survival skills (5 periods)
the harvest of 1621 which came nine months later was a bountiful one and the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast this was a celebration and the colonists praised god for the harvest (2 periods)
the event probably occurred at the end of september but historians don’t know the exact date the settlers asked squanto and the wampanoag leader chief massasoit to bring their family members to dine with them squanto and massasoit arrived with 90 relatives which surprised the pilgrims for they had no idea that there were so many indians in the area nevertheless there was enough food for everybody and the feast lasted three days the pilgrims and indians ate outdoors at large tables and competed together in games of skill and strength (5 periods)
the colonists provided wild fowl (birds) and the indians brought five deer according to journals written at the time the feast consisted of quite a few different dishes including lobster goose roast duck turkey corn yams (sweet potatoes) different kinds of berries codfish stewed pumpkin venison (deer meat) fruit and different types of cheese (2 periods)
in modern times few american familes enjoy a thanksgiving dinner as enormous and lavish as the one enjoyed in 1621 and many people are satisfied just to have turkey cranberries sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie which is the most typical american thanksgiving dinner (1 period)
1 of 2