Beacon Lesson Plan Library
On Becoming a Grammar Guru
Vicky Nichols
Bay District Schools
Description
Students review and practice the basic parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, and possessives) by creating and entering their own stories on a Website or by sharing their stories with a friend.
Objectives
The student produces final documents that have been edited for-correct spelling;-correct punctuation, including commas, colons, and semicolons;-correct common usage, including subject/verb agreement, common noun/pronoun agreement, common possessive forms, and with a variety of sentence structures,including parallel structure; and-correct formatting.
The student understands that there are patterns and rules in semantic structure, symbols, sounds, and meanings conveyed through the English language.
Materials
-"School House Grammar Rock" video
-Paper
-Pencils
-Television
-VCR
Optional:
-Computers with Internet access
Preparations
1. Visit the Internet site and preview the video.
2. If no computer is available for the classroom, the stories and lists should be duplicated.
Procedures
1. Gain the students' attention by showing the video, "School House Grammar Rock" to review grammar.(Allow approximately twenty minutes.)
2. Present the objectives by informing students that they will practice recognizing the correct common usage of the parts of speech as well as look at the patterns and rules in sentence structure, but.... it will be fun.
3. Relate to the students' present knowledge by asking students for the common parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction) and their characteristics. Have a student list these on the board with examples.
4. Engage students in learning by allowing them to use the computer to go to the site entitled "Wacky Web Tales." (See Weblinks.) Have students complete the tales by filling in the blanks to create stories. Use a big screen TV to display the information to the whole class, or allow students to work in small groups at the computer.
OPTIONAL: If computers are not available in the classroom, print and duplicate the stories and lists for students.
Assessments
Review students' stories and provide effective and corrective feedback. Students who substitute more than four incorrect choices (parts of speech) need additional practice stories.
Circulate and formatively assess students as they use the technology tools. Provide assistance for students who are experiencing difficulty and monitor accordingly. Students access the site, submit their stories, and print them.
Extensions
Students who are having difficulty identifying the parts of speech can work with a mentor.
Students who are unfamiliar with a computer can work with a mentor.
Extension:
Students write their own paragraph stories deleting the nouns, verbs, etc.
They create a corresponding list to use for inserting new words into their story.
Web Links
Check the stories carefully to make sure that the missing words are correctly identified by their parts of speech before students submit their stories to the website. Wacky Tales
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