Writing sentences that convey our thoughts

Lesson Plan: Writing Fabulous Sentences 

Subject: LA   Sequence: Ongoing

Lesson Objective: To assist students to effectively combine two sentences in order to make a new sentence that is more detailed, better organized, and more interesting, while being aware of what is required to make a complete sentence. 

POS Learning Objectives: 

Grade Five General Outcome 4. 

4.2 Attend to Conventions

Organize information 

• use clear organizational structures, such as chronological order, and cause and effect, to link ideas and information and to assist audience understanding
• organize ideas and information to emphasize key points for the audience
• add, delete or combine ideas  to communicate more effectively

Revise and edit

• revise to add and organize details that support, and clarify intended meaning
• edit for appropriate use of statements, questions and exclamations

Length: 53 minutes 

Prep:

Photocopy 24 copies of page 16  “Combining Two Ideas in a Single Sentence” From Writing Fabulous Sentences and Paragraphs

Photocopy 24 copies of Subject and Predicates No Fragments pg. 36 and 37

Materials: 

Teacher Resources: 

POS Grade Five Language Arts

Writing Fabulous Sentences and Paragraphs. Evan-Moor Booklet. Pg. 14-17 

Print 

GrammarHeads Subject and Predicate Lessons. Page 37 worksheet on Subjects and Predicates, no fragments. 

GrammarHeads Reminder [one copy for each student to glue into their LA Binder. 

Student Resources: LA Binder, pencil and paper

Key Vocabulary: 

Noun: person, place or thing.

Pronoun: a word that can function by itself or as a noun phrase and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this). 

Noun Phrase: a word or group of words that functions in a sentence as subject, object, or prepositional object.

Subject: subject is the who or what [girl or building]

Predicate: is the what that the who or what is doing  [talking, shaking, crashing down]

Verbs: action words. 

Fragments: incomplete sentence, does not have a subject and or a predicate.

A run-on sentence just keeps going and going and going with too many thoughts combined.

A sentence has two parts. The subject names someone or something. The predicate tells what the subject is or does. Or, in other words, you can think of it this way: a subject is the noun, and the predicate is the verb.

Instruction:

Explain that I want us to look at ways to write more interesting and well written sentences.

Review the concept of what is a full sentence. Point out that sentences must have two things, a subject and a predicate. [Noun and verb]

Real life connection: Ask someone to describe the classroom. After they describe it, point out that the subject is the classroom, the description of the class is the predicate.

What is a fragment sentence: it lacks a main subject and verb or both. Use a part of the above answer to point this concept out. As in, if someone says “the classroom is filled with tables and chairs. If we just said, filled with tables and chairs. This is a fragment. 

A run-on sentence just keeps going and going and going with too many thoughts combined.

Give the students GrammarHeads pg. 36.Subject and Predicate, “Draw a Line” sheet to the students. Have someone read the reminder first. Do together. 

Do GrammarHeads Subject and Predicate Lessons with the class. [Page 37 worksheet on Subjects and Predicates, no fragments]. verb

Using page 14, Combining sentences, from Writing Fabulous Sentences, as background knowledge for myself, explain to students that often the information included in two sentences can be combined into one sentence. Combining ideas makes writing more interesting by eliminating short, choppy sentences. 

Do page 15 with the kids. Put page 15 under project. Work through with the kids. 

Give kids page 16 from Writing Fabulous Sentences, do two sentences with the students, have them do the rest independently.