Title – Show Me the Sentence According to Structure!

By – Sally Jeanne Spoon

Primary Subject – Language Arts

Grade Level – 7-10

Objective/Goal: Students will show their ability to determine the type of sentence according to structure.

Purpose: Students enjoy the following exercise/game because it is a little out of the ordinary. It helps the teacher know right away who is having trouble and with what kinds of sentences. It also helps motivate everyone in the room to participate in the learning.

Required Materials:

1. The teacher will need to cut 2×4 inch strips for each student (one of each of four colors for a total of four strips each). I usually use green, red, blue and yellow so that they are easy to distinguish from each other.
   
2. You will also need a set of sentences with various structures. (Exercises from books, workbooks or worksheets will do.)

Step-By-Step Procedures:

1. Each student will need one of each color of strip.
   
2. Each student will code the strips according to the teacher’s wishes. I usually have them write S for simple on yellow, CD for compound on blue, CX for complex on green and CDCX on red for compound/complex.
   
3. Hand out worksheets, turn to text page, or whatever applies to getting the sentences the class will be evaluating.
   
4. Have one student read the first sentence. Tell the students that you (the teacher) will say “Show me the Structure” (like the chant from the movie when Cuba Gooding, Jr. makes Tom Cruise yell “Show Me the Money!”) At that point, each and every student should wave high the color corresponding to the kind of sentence each believes it is. Warn them not to give away to their neighbors what color they think it is.
   
5. Do this for all of the sentences, keeping an eye out for “cheaters” who try to look at everyone else’s answer before they decide. It is very important that everyone does it on cue.

Assessment: Afterwards, I always assign a worksheet with a similar set of sentences and have them mark all the sentences with both the color and the type of sentence.

Extensions: Students could 1) use the color coding system to make posters to explain the different types of sentences or 2) write sentences according to a pattern (red, blue, green, yellow, blue, green, etc.), making them understand the sentence type, coding system and writing the correct form.

Adaptations: Some students with learning difficulties could have future worksheets and tests color-coded with the same color and sentence type correlation

E-Mail

Sally Jeanne Spoon

!