Students explore all the uses of commas by finding sentences using commas and describing how they are used by comparing the sentences to the rules for utilizing commas. They create a poster with five rules of commas and examples for each...

Your class participates in a variety of shared reading and writing activities related to the book Julian Secret Agent. They complete a class story chart, examine how to use punctuation for dialogue, write an alternative...

Students write a sentence using three objects that they have in front of them. They identify where to place commas in their word series sentence, and read them outloud to the class.

Upper elementary and middle schoolers, in pairs, use PowerPoint to link a button to every comma within a piece of writing. The button links to a slide explaining why the comma was used. They present their slides to the class.

Study unusual punctuation marks in this punctuation lesson. Young grammarians work in small groups to research one of the unusual punctuation marks (semi-colon, colon, dash, comma, ellipses, or quotation marks) and discuss how the mark...

Fifth graders discuss interjections reviewing them to be words or phrases that express excitement or strong emotion. In this language arts lesson plan, 5th graders understand that commas or exclamation marks are used to separate...

Students write dialogue. For this character development activity students use direct or indirect speech to include a confrontation between two characters in their story. Students portray the emotions of the characters in addition to what...

Looking for a lesson about differing sentence types? Use this lesson on compound and complex sentences in your grammar unit. After composing simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentences individually and as part of a group,...

Pupils review the differences between defining and non-defining clauses, and then go on to a writing exercise which employs non-defining relative clauses to expand a basic story outline.

Candy conversation hearts make writing a sweet pastime. Fifth graders write narratives demonstrating a complete thought and correct punctuation. The trick here is that they must use the words on five candy conversation hearts as part of...

A reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech launches a study of rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, allusion, metaphor, simile, personification, connotative language and parallel structure. Class members then...

Young readers select a book from a provided list to use as the basis for an intensive class study of Holocaust novels. After completing their novels, groups create a multimedia presentation highlighting the elements of literature...

Students construct sentences using nouns and verbs from a "renewable energy" word bank. In this cross curriculum ecology and sentence structure grammar and mechanics instructional activity, students listen to the book Our Earth: Clean...

Students examine the expressive and descriptive language used in the books "Dr. Xargle's Book of Earthlets" and "Planet of the Robots." In pairs they take notes about each other's physical appearance and conduct interviews, identify the...

Learners write a friendly letter. They write a friendly letter to author, Cynthia Rylant, after reading a number of her books, and watch a presentation by the teacher that describes how to write the letter. They word process their...

Students discuss the importance of using adjectives in writing. They separate into five groups, each group is given a bag with an object inside to describe using just one sense. They write a description of a Hershey's Kiss using adjectives.

What do the words alligator, armadillo, and cockroach all have in common? Each one is an English word with Spanish origins. Introduce young etymologists to the joys of discovering word origins with a lesson that asks them to create a...

Third graders relate the concept of individuality of geometric shapes to the individuality of topic sentences. They write and revise a persuasive argument essay using an established rubric.

High schoolers read sales promotion reports and create a sales promotion summary using information from the report. They develop a graphic organizer to outline their information for a presentation. There is an assessment checklist...

Fourth graders apply scientific information about various landforms. They use the information to write and word process acrostic poems which they illustrate with clip art or pictures from magazines.

Students prepare for Youth Voices Forum by writing resolutions using actual format employed by United Nations. Students explore components of resolution, including formal language, and practice writing and critiquing resolutions.

Students sort word card into two categories (common and proper nouns). They copy the class charts. Students create a table in Word including the headings, common noun and proper noun. They put the correct words onto their chart and add a...

Fourth graders listen to the story, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish" and complete a cartoon drawing containing dialogue that shows an understanding of conventions used in dialogue by using the bubble form.

Fifth graders use the internet to research the Silver Star given to those who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Using the information, they write a short report on one of the recipients of the Silver Star. In groups, they visit a...