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Sentence
Structure Unit
GLO 4

Carolyn McKee Fall 2020

Sentence Structure Unit

Rationale
This unit will serve as an extension of the grammar unit that we will have completed the
previous week. Moving forward from a basic understanding of punctuation, students will now
engage with sentence structure, connotation/denotations, superlatives, and paragraph form
(opening sentences, body sentences, clinchers, transitions) conjunctions, nouns, verbs, adjectives.
This unit will set students up for success as it will give them the tools, knowledge, vocabulary,
and familiarity they need in order to properly form paragraphs as we move forward into
persuasive writing in a few weeks.

This basic understanding of sentence structure and paragraph structure is critical in giving
students the tools they need to effectively communicate. These students, as we all are, are living
through intense periods of cultural unrest, reform, and need a way to communicate the emotions,
experiences, and opinions they have. Our students have voices that need to be heard, and this
unit is a chance for them to experiment with how to share that voice is a compelling, structured
manner, tools that will give them strength and power in the ever-changing world outside of our
classroom doors.

Essential Question
How can I best form sentences that are structured, strong, and varied?

Key Questions:
What are nouns, verbs, and adjectives?
What are simple, compound and complex sentence structures?
What are pronouns and antecedents and how can I make them agree?
How can I make verb tenses agree?
What are key skills when peer editing?

Learning Objectives
4.2 Attend to Conventions

Attend to grammar and usage

 use words and phrases to modify, clarify and enhance ideas and descriptions in own
writing
 use a variety of simple, compound and complex sentence structures to communicate
effectively, and to make writing interesting
  use correct pronoun-antecedent agreement in own writing
 use verb tenses consistently throughout a piece of writing

Revise and edit

 revise by adding words and phrases that emphasize important ideas or create dominant
impressions
 revise to enhance sentence variety, word choice and appropriate tone
 use paragraph structures to demonstrate unity and coherence

Student Resources Teacher Resources

Postcards Quill.org

Grammar slides The English Teacher’s Survivial Guide –

Brandvik and McKnight
Mad Libs Teacher’s Pay Teachers

Sentence variety paragraph - Provost Classroom Library

Eslactivity.org

Activities
Writing postcards
Word Strips
Mad Libs
Sentence Blending
Worksheets
Sentence Structure Scavenging Hunt
Kahoot

Timeline
Day 1
- write postcards
 - nouns, verbs, adjectives on paper strips (groups of 3-4, 10-12 strips, organize into piles)
- Gen Z slang – organize into nouns, adjectives, verbs
- Read postcards, find the nouns, adjectives, verbs
- Exit slip – provide one example each of noun, adjectives, verb
Day 2
- Review noun, adjective, verb
- Five word sentences pdf
- Sentence structure – simple, compound, complex
- Subject, object, verb – have examples from class library
- Blending sentences – Bridging English activity
- Identify and create sentences
Day 3
- Review sentence structures
- Pronouns and antecedents
- Quill.org lesson
- Write nice postcards
o Put expectations on the board
o Compare to first draft – what have we learned?
Day 4
- Review pronoun and antecedents
- Verb Tenses
- Quill.org lesson
- Sentence Scavenging
- Review! Take ugly sentences and fix the grammatical errors or kahoot?

Day 5
- Quiz
- Contrast and compare postcards

Assessment
Assessments
Pronouns and Sentence
Exit Blending
Title Antecedents Structure Quiz
Learning slips
worksheet
Sentences
Scavenger Hunt
Outcomes Type For Summ
(Formative/Summati Summ Summ Summ
ve) m
Weighting N/A 5% 5% 5% 85%
4.2.1 Attend to grammar
and usage X X X X X

4.2.2 Revise and edit

X x X

Assessment Brief Description Assessmen Assessment

 t
OF
Tool FOR
Learning
Learning

Prompt: Provide one example each of a noun, verb, adjective.

Exit slips x

Worksheet wherein students identify pronouns and their

P and A
antecedents, write their own pronouns and antecedents, and x x
sentences
create their own sentences.

Blending Students will receive groups of short sentences, and use

X X
sentences conjunctions to blend the sentences.

Sentence Students will find simple, compound, complex sentences in books

Structure from the class library. On teams of 2-3, and points will be given
X X
Scavenger for each sentence structure they find (simple =1, compound = 3,
Hunt complex = 3, compound-complex = 8).
On Friday the students will have a quiz that will ask them to
match definitions, create their own sentences as examples,
Quiz X
describe the purpose of sentence variety, and correct
grammatically incorrect sentences.

Differentiation
I will provide differentiation in the classroom by allowing students to work in group that I will
make once I have a better understanding of my students’ skills. I will provide opportunities to
review the previous lesson at the beginning of every lesson, providing time to reconnect the
concepts that were introduced and taught the day before. We are doing a lot of sitting and
listening and writing in this unit, and I am hoping that the scavenger hunt will add a level of
competition that will make the class more enjoyable. I will provide simpler worksheets to
students that are struggling with the concepts in order to provide a more gradual increase of
difficulty, ensuring they feel supported and competent. For the hares, on days two and four I will
require them to move beyond merely finding certain sentence structures and creating their own.