The performance, choreographed by dancer Martha _____ incorporated innovative movements that revolutionized modern dance.

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

• The performance,
• choreographed by dancer Martha Graham [?]
• incorporated innovative movements
• that revolutionized modern dance.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

'The performance, choreographed by dancer Martha Graham...'

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

• A. Graham,
• B. Graham (no punctuation)
• C. Graham:
• D. Graham—

So we're deciding what punctuation, if any, should come after "Graham."

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

The sentence continues: '...incorporated innovative movements that revolutionized modern dance.'

Now let's understand what we have:

• 'The performance'
  • This is the main subject - what the sentence is about.
• 'choreographed by dancer Martha Graham'
  • This is a descriptive phrase giving us extra information about the performance.
  • Notice it comes BETWEEN the subject and what comes next.
• 'incorporated innovative movements that revolutionized modern dance'
  • This tells us what the performance did - "incorporated" is the main action.
  • The movements "revolutionized modern dance" - pretty significant!

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The phrase "choreographed by dancer Martha Graham" interrupts the natural flow from subject to verb.
  • The main structure is: "The performance incorporated movements"
  • But we've inserted descriptive information in the middle
• When a descriptive phrase interrupts like this, we need to set it off with matching punctuation on BOTH sides.
  • We already have the opening comma after "performance"
  • So we need a closing comma after "Graham" to complete the pair

The correct answer is A (comma) - it pairs with the opening comma to properly set off the interruptive descriptive phrase.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Setting Off Interruptive Descriptive Phrases with Paired Commas

When you insert a descriptive phrase that interrupts the main flow of a sentence (called a parenthetical element in grammar terms), you need to set it off with matching punctuation on both sides - typically commas. This is especially important when the phrase comes between the subject and verb:

Pattern: [Subject], [descriptive phrase], [verb]...

Example 1:

• Without interruption: The scientist discovered a new species.
• With interruptive phrase: The scientist, working in the Amazon rainforest, discovered a new species.
  • Opening comma after "scientist"
  • Closing comma after "rainforest"

Example 2:

• Without interruption: The report confirmed our suspicions.
• With interruptive phrase: The report, released yesterday by the committee, confirmed our suspicions.
  • Opening comma after "report"
  • Closing comma after "committee"

In our question:

• The performance, choreographed by dancer Martha Graham, incorporated innovative movements...
  • "choreographed by dancer Martha Graham" interrupts between subject and verb
  • Opening comma after "performance"
  • Closing comma needed after "Graham"

The key principle: What opens must close. If you start setting off a phrase with a comma, you must end it with a comma to signal the return to the main sentence structure.