It's vs. Its ----- Where's The Problem?

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Many a post’s (has) been written on the topic of apostrophes. The ones in the know have nodded in agreement, the ones in the dark have either looked at the text and thought, “If only I could keep all this in mind, but it‘s (is) too complicated for me” or shrugged their shoulders and turned away thinking, “Who cares?” Why am I writing another post then? Rest assured, I’ve (have) got a life and I don’t (do not) need a chill pill, I’m (am) cool, man, I’ve (have) even got this in writing. But I’m (am) a teacher, meaning I’m (am) eternally optimistic. The proverb ‘Constant dripping wears the stone’ doesn’t (does not) exist for nothing. Maybe there’ll (will) be a miracle and this review will open an eye or two and lead to someone’s enlightenment. The other day I met a former pupil of mine, who’s (is) approaching forty. He told me that he has to think of me when he sees a wrong apostrophe (he must think of me a lot!). I taught him when he was thirteen. Hooray! Fanfare! From the way I’ve written the above paragraphs you can already learn one function of the apostrophe, namely, to mark omitted letters. The greatest problem seems to be to find out if ‘its’ or ‘it’s’ is correct. But where is the problem? It’s so easy peasy that it’s embarrassing to see how many writers don’t master it. If pupils who learn English as a foreign language can get it right, native speakers should be able to get it right, too, don’t you think? I’ve seen intelligent writers writing intelligently about profound topics who don’t know how to use an apostrophe. German has a term for what I feel in such a case, namely ‘fremdschämen’ = being ashamed by proxy. I could tell you something about possessive pronouns and so on but I prefer the simple, unscientific method: ‘IT’S’ means ‘IT IS’ or 'IT HAS' - that’s the whole secret! Now whenever you are about to type one of the forms, stop, wait a sec, think if you can say ‘it is 'or 'it has’. If you can, the apostrophe is correct. If you can’t, it isn’t.