Punctuation: a simple topic, but one that branches into so many directions. Recently a teacher criticized me for placing "incorrect" punctuation in a sentence similar to the following:

Kierkegaard composed the phrase "truth is subjectivity".

Okay, I totally forget what the subject of the sentence was, so I improvised. The teacher not only placed a thick red arrow guiding the period one character to the left, but she also drew a glaring red asterisk next to it. Seriously, is it even wrong? I'm aware that Americans have adopted her method as the "proper" pronunciation rule, but:

1) It doesn't make sense. The period ends the sentence, not the phrase. As a matter of fact, this use of grammar implies that the period exists as part of the phrase, no matter where in the sentence the phrase is written. From this use of grammar, one might infer the following sentence is correct.
"Truth is subjectivity." is a phrase Kierkegaard used in his books on existentialism.
Obviously it's not.

2) Don't the British still use "my" style of punctuation?

By the way, the same argument goes for parenthetical statements as well (I often punctuate such statements thusly). (However, if the whole sentence is a phrase, I usually punctuate it like this.)