To serve local families during the Great Depression, innovative New York City librarian Pura Belpré offered storytelling in both English...

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

• To serve local families during the Great Depression,
  • innovative New York City librarian Pura Belpré
    • offered storytelling in both English and Spanish,
      • an uncommon practice [?] at the time [?]
    • celebrated el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos,
      • an important community holiday;
    • and put on puppet shows
      • dramatizing Puerto Rican folktales.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by telling us the purpose:

• 'To serve local families during the Great Depression'
  • This tells us WHY Pura Belpré did what she did - to help families in her community during this difficult time period.

The subject is:

• 'innovative New York City librarian Pura Belpré'

And now we get into what she did. The sentence lists her actions:

• 'offered storytelling in both English and Spanish'
  • which is described as 'an uncommon practice'
  • this tells us that offering services in two languages wasn't typical back then

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

• All include "at the time"
• They differ on whether it has commas around it and what punctuation follows

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

The sentence continues with more actions:

• 'celebrated el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos, an important community holiday'
  • Another thing she did

• 'and put on puppet shows dramatizing Puerto Rican folktales'
  • A third thing she did

Now let's understand the complete structure. What do we notice?

This sentence is listing three parallel things Pura Belpré did:

1. offered storytelling (described as an uncommon practice at the time)
2. celebrated a community holiday
3. put on puppet shows

Looking at the structure more carefully:

• Each item in this list has its own internal description with commas:
  • Item 1: "storytelling... an uncommon practice at the time"
  • Item 2: "el Día... an important community holiday"
  • Item 3: "puppet shows dramatizing Puerto Rican folktales"

• Notice that items 2 and 3 are separated by a semicolon + "and"

• This tells us we're using semicolons to separate the major items in the list

Now, what about "at the time"?

• Look at the phrase: "an uncommon practice at the time"
  • Does "at the time" interrupt the thought, or is it part of the description?
  • It tells us WHEN this practice was uncommon - it's essential information
  • It's not an aside or interruption
  • So it shouldn't be set off with commas

So we need: "practice at the time;"

• No commas around "at the time" (it's integral to the phrase)
• A semicolon after to separate this first item from the second item in the series

The correct answer is Choice B.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Semicolons to Separate Items in a Complex Series

When you're listing three or more items, you normally separate them with commas. But when the items themselves contain commas (because each item has its own internal descriptions or modifiers), you need semicolons to separate the major items. This prevents confusion about where one item ends and another begins.

Simple series (uses commas):

• She brought apples, oranges, and bananas.

Complex series (uses semicolons):

• She brought apples, both red and green; oranges, which were seedless; and bananas.
  • Item 1: apples, both red and green
  • Item 2: oranges, which were seedless
  • Item 3: bananas

In this question:

• Item 1: offered storytelling in both English and Spanish, an uncommon practice at the time
• Item 2: celebrated el Día de los Tres Reyes Magos, an important community holiday
• Item 3: put on puppet shows dramatizing Puerto Rican folktales

Each item has internal commas setting off descriptive information, so semicolons separate the major items.

Bonus point about "at the time":

• This phrase is an integral part of the description - it tells us when the practice was uncommon
• Integral modifiers should NOT be set off with commas
• Only use commas for interrupting or parenthetical phrases that could be removed without changing the essential meaning