Dolores Huerta's advocacy on behalf of farmworkers was rooted in her experience as a schoolteacher in Stockton, California, in the...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Dolores Huerta's advocacy on behalf of farmworkers
  • was rooted in her experience
    • as a schoolteacher
      • in Stockton, California,
        • in the early 1950s.

• Hoping to help her students and their families outside the classroom[?]
• Huerta
  • left teaching
    • to start the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization,
      • a group focused on the needs of local farmworkers.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us background:

• Dolores Huerta's advocacy for farmworkers came from her experience as a teacher
  • in Stockton, California
  • in the early 1950s

Now the second sentence starts with:

• "Hoping to help her students and their families outside the classroom"

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• We're deciding between a period, semicolon, comma, or no punctuation after "classroom"

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues:

• "Huerta left teaching to start the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization, a group focused on the needs of local farmworkers."

Now let's understand the complete picture:

• "Hoping to help her students and their families outside the classroom"
  • This phrase explains WHY Huerta did what she did
  • It provides her motivation

• "Huerta left teaching to start the Stockton chapter..."
  • This is the main action of the sentence
  • Subject: Huerta
  • What she did: left teaching and started an organization

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The opening phrase "Hoping to help..." is NOT a complete thought
  • It can't stand alone as its own sentence
  • It's describing/providing context for the main action

• The part "Huerta left teaching..." IS a complete thought
  • It has a subject (Huerta) and a verb (left)
  • It tells us the main action

• When we have an introductory descriptive phrase followed by the main part of the sentence, we need a comma to separate them

So we need Choice C: comma

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas to Separate Introductory Phrases from Main Clauses

When a sentence begins with an introductory phrase that provides context or background information (called a participial phrase in grammar terms), we use a comma to separate it from the main part of the sentence:

Pattern:

• Introductory phrase, + Main clause (subject + verb)

Example 1:

• Hoping to improve her community, Maria started a volunteer program
• Introductory phrase: "Hoping to improve her community"
• Comma separates it from the main clause
• Main clause: "Maria started a volunteer program"

Example 2:

• Walking through the park, the students noticed the unusual bird
• Introductory phrase: "Walking through the park"
• Comma separates it from the main clause
• Main clause: "the students noticed the unusual bird"

In this question:

• Introductory phrase: "Hoping to help her students and their families outside the classroom"
• Comma needed here
• Main clause: "Huerta left teaching to start the Stockton chapter..."

The introductory phrase can't stand alone as a sentence, so it needs the comma to properly connect it to the complete thought that follows.