Amanda Holley
Convention Mini-Lesson: Commas between independent clauses
Class/Subject: Language Arts
Materials: overhead, letter bags, cookie sheets, journals
Statement of Objectives:
����������� Tell the students: �Today we are going to go over independent clauses and the commas that can go between the independent clauses.� This will help you all in your writing in the future here in class an later on outside of class.�� In other words, the students will be applying conventions of grammar usage in learning.
6th-8th grades: Goal 6- The learner will apply conventions of grammar and language usage.
����������� 6.01- Model an understanding of conventional written and spoken expressions by using phrases and clauses correctly, including proper punctuation.
National Standard #6- Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions, media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
Teacher Input: 10 min
����������� Give the students a review on what independent clauses are by using the overhead on independent clauses.� Then go over the overhead as a class and get the students to give me more examples of independent clauses.� �Let�s start off with independent clauses.� The definition of an independent clause is that it expresses a complete thought and can stand by itself as a sentence.� Here are three examples of sentences with independent clauses in them.� Raise your hand to point one of the clauses out.� Underline the clauses as the students name them.� Now I need some more examples of some independent clauses.� Write their examples on the overhead.� Now that we know what an independent clause is then lets look at the comma rule that goes along with independent clauses.� Read the definition off of the overhead.� Now lets take your independent clauses and using the comma rule, lets make sentences with your examples.�� Take their independent clauses and combine some of them with a comma and a joining word to give examples to the students. (Examples of student responses and of the definition are on the attached overhead.)
Independent Practice: 10-20 min
����������� �Now I need everyone to get into groups of 3-5 students and wait until I give your group a bag that has magnetic words in it and a cookie sheet.� Once you have everything, I want your group to explore and take the words and comma and make sentences with them.� The only criteria for the sentences are that they have to be made up of two independent clauses and joined with a comma and a joining word.� Your group�s goal is to see how many sentences you can make with the words.� (The words are on an attached form and an example of them as magnets are also attached.)
Closure: 5-10 min
����������� �I need a volunteer to tell us some of the sentences your group made.�� Get the students to volunteer some of the sentences their group put together with the class and put them up on the board.� �For homework I want you to tell me what you learned in the lesson in your journal.�
Resources:
Warriner, John.
TX. 1995