During the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, African American artists, writers, and musicians created works that celebrated Black culture and...

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

• During the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s,
  • African American artists, writers, and musicians
    • created works
      • that celebrated Black culture and challenged racial stereotypes.
• Langston Hughes
  • emerged as one of the era's most influential voices
    • when he published his first collection of poetry [?] began touring the country
      • to give readings and lectures
        • that brought his work to wider audiences.

Understanding the Meaning

The first sentence gives us context:

During the Harlem Renaissance, African American artists, writers, and musicians created works that celebrated Black culture and challenged racial stereotypes.

Now let's move to the second sentence about Langston Hughes:

'Langston Hughes emerged as one of the era's most influential voices'

• He became a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance

'when he published his first collection of poetry'

• This is when he emerged as influential - when he published his poetry collection

This is where we have the blank.

Let's look at the choices:

1. poetry that
2. poetry, that
3. poetry and
4. poetry, and

We're deciding between "that" and "and" - with or without a comma. To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

'began touring the country to give readings and lectures that brought his work to wider audiences'

• This describes more of what Hughes did - he toured and gave readings/lectures
• These tours brought his work to more people

Now let's really understand what this sentence is telling us about what Hughes did:

• 'he published his first collection of poetry'
  • This is one action Hughes took
• 'began touring the country'
  • This is a second action Hughes took

So the complete picture is:

• Hughes did TWO things that made him influential:
  • (1) published poetry
  • (2) began touring

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We have ONE subject (he/Hughes) performing TWO actions
  • First action: published poetry
  • Second action: began touring
• If we used "that," it would make "began touring" describe the poetry
  • "poetry that began touring" - but poetry can't tour! People tour!
  • This would be illogical
• We need "and" to connect these two parallel actions
  • "published poetry and began touring" - this makes sense
  • Both actions are things Hughes did

What about the comma?

• When you have one subject doing two actions (just two, not three or more),
  • You DON'T use a comma before "and"
  • Example: "She walked to the store and bought milk" (no comma)
• You only use a comma before "and" when joining two complete thoughts with separate subjects
  • Example: "She walked to the store, and he stayed home" (comma needed)

So we need: poetry and (no comma)

The correct answer is C.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Connecting Two Actions by the Same Subject

When one person or thing performs two actions, you connect those actions with "and" - and you DON'T use a comma when it's just two actions (this structure is called a compound predicate in grammar terms):

Pattern for compound predicate (one subject, two verbs):

• Subject + \(\mathrm{verb_1}\) + and + \(\mathrm{verb_2}\) (no comma)
• Example: "He published poetry and began touring"
• Subject: He
• Verb\(\mathrm{_1}\): published poetry
• Verb\(\mathrm{_2}\): began touring
• No comma needed

Compare to joining two complete thoughts (two subjects, two verbs):

• Subject\(\mathrm{_1}\) + \(\mathrm{verb_1}\), and + Subject\(\mathrm{_2}\) + \(\mathrm{verb_2}\) (comma needed)
• Example: "He published poetry, and he began touring"
• First complete thought: He published poetry
• Second complete thought: he began touring
• Comma needed before "and"

In our question:

• "when he published his first collection of poetry and began touring"
• One subject (he) performs two actions
• Connected with "and"
• No comma needed

Key distinction: The comma rule changes based on whether you're connecting just verbs (no comma) or complete thoughts (comma needed).