Let's eat kids. Let's eat, kids. Commas make a difference! Conventions 101: A Functional Approach to Teaching (and Assessing!) Grammar and Punctuation explains ways to teach the importance and use of conventions. Learners take part in...

They're going to be there with their family. Class members practice using and identifying the correct use of they're, there, and their with a skills practice activity. The top half of the activity gives brief background information on...

Tired of seeing u instead of you and 2 instead of too? Teach your pupils how to write for an academic setting by asking them to correct these six social media posts that are full of grammatical errors, spelling errors, and text speak.

Turn your youngsters into little editors with an exercise that focuses on some of the most basic and important writing conventions: capitalization and punctuation. Learners fix five sentences and then rewrite a sentence using correct...

Put together an English language arts unit on the six traits of writing with this helpful collection of resources. From fun songs to differentiated writing exercises reinforcing each of the traits, great ideas are provided for developing...

Help your young writers pay close attention to their conventions and move toward revision with a straightforward chart. Learners can analyze 11 sentences on this page by noting down the first letter in each, the first of words in each,...

What, there was a crocodile escape? Read, analyze, and examine a newspaper article with your class about the crocodiles that escaped in Vietnam. Your English language learners note the facts and key vocabulary in the story and answer...

Scholars read a newspaper article about Tom Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes in 2006. They define vocabulary words, complete comprehension worksheets, and analyze use of the present perfect and passive in the article. Individuals write...

Direct instruction on punctuation rules for titles is followed by collaborative practice in class. Two worksheets with aesthetically engaging graphic design provide practice. For 12 examples, small groups either underline, italicize, or...

Be sure to click "Download this Activity" to view the plan in its formatted version. The first worksheet has learners review what types of titles are italicized, underlined, or placed in quotation marks. The second page contains the...

Review guidelines regarding correct form in titles. Using an informative review box at the top of the page for guidance, learners underline, add quotation marks, and capitalize titles in 20 example sentences. They then write five...

If they are intrinsically motivated, your learners complete a 10-question matching online interactive quiz. They match sentences with the tag questions that go with them. They don't need to try on their own before the answers are...

As middle and high schoolers experiment with their writing styles, it's easy to slip in a few accidental sentence fragments. After reading a full-page of information regarding how to identify and avoid sentence fragments, learners...

Learners don't necessarily create art in this lesson, but they do use it to inspire a descriptive story. They discuss various mythic heroes, story elements, writing conventions, and oral traditions. They view images depicting an ancient...

Here are three well-thought-out tasks intended to build good note taking and letter writing skills. The class reads three short letters, determines who wrote them (based on context) and takes notes as a pre-writing activity. They finish...

Get young writers in the practice of editing their work using this punctuation and grammar worksheet. They first read eight sentences with grammar issues, rewriting or checking off as correct. The sentence errors involve subject-verb...

Young writers learn about similes and read some examples using the topic of volcanoes. They write 10 similes of their own and choose one to illustrate. The graphic design of the sheet is clean, promoting focus and clarity.

Investigate adjectives with writers. They define adjectives and create their own sentences describing objects found at home using adjectives correctly. Focus on the five senses and sensory details.

Explore English by participating in a grammar correcting activity. Elementary and middle schoolers distinguish when to use commas from when to use semicolons. Then they correct twelve sentences by placing commas and semicolons in the...

What makes writing powerful, persuasive, and effective? According to this resource: focus, organization, support, and conventions. Each of these categories is paired with a guiding question and clip art for color and aesthetics.

Remind your writers to check over their work with a few rules and items to keep in mind. This list asks editors to take a look at capitalization, dialogue, homophones, apostrophes, commas, sentence structure, and pronouns. Some, but not...

Middle schoolers read fifteen sentences and complete them with the verb in past simple, past progressive, or past perfect simple. They complete an online grammar activity practicing verb tenses.

Nine lessons in a grammar and usage unit provide endless opportunities for drill and practice. Topics include the four types of sentences, subject and predicates, nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs and prepositions, conjunctions...

Young grammarians as well as language learners can benefit from a short presentation about using appositives to combine short, related sentences. After a brief definition of terms, pairs share their ideas and combine model sentences.