Punctuation Lesson Plan

In my education at NAU, I had to write a lot of lesson plans. Here’s one of them. Maybe you’ll be interested in how teachers are supposed to write lesson plans nowadays. All the standards were taken from the Arizona Department of Education website. There’s so many state standards, and they’re filled with educational jargon and buzzwords.

When I started student teaching, though, and actually got into the classroom, I found that few teachers actually used the state standards or wrote lesson plans like this.

This is not a fantastic lesson plan, but it will give you an idea of all the hoops I had to jump through to get through college.

Subject: English Telemoonfa
Grade Level: 9 9/10/07

Introduction to Punctuation

Objectives:
General Objectives: By the end of this lesson, students will generally know about punctuation.
Specific Learning Objectives: Students will compare an improperly punctuated paragraph to a properly punctuated paragraph.
Students will basically understand the nature and origin of punctuation.

Standards:
Subject : Language Arts


Subject/ Grade/ Domain : Writing



Grade : Grade 9



Strand : Strand 2: Writing Elements



Concept : Concept 6: Conventions Conventions addresses the mechanics of writing, including capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar and usage, and paragraph breaks.



Performance Objective PO 1: Use capitals correctly for:



Example a: proper nouns: holidays, place/regional names, languages, historical events, organizations, academic courses (e.g., algebra/Algebra I), product names



Example b: words used as names (e.g., Grandpa, Aunt Lyn)



Example c: literary titles (i.e., book, story, poem, play, song)



Example d: titles



Example e: abbreviations



Example f: proper adjectives (e.g., German shepherd, Chinese restaurant)



Performance Objective PO 4: Use underlining or italics to correctly identify titles and vessels (e.g., ships, spacecrafts, planes, trains).



Performance Objective PO 5: Use colons to punctuate business letter salutations and sentences introducing lists.



Performance Objective PO 6: Use semicolons to punctuate compound and compound-complex sentences when appropriate.



Performance Objective PO 8: Use hyphens, dashes, parentheses, ellipses and brackets correctly.



Opening Set: Say, “Today’s lesson is about punctuation.” Have the class read the ant paragraph without punctuation and ask “What’s wrong with that paragraph?” Answer: There’s no punctuation! Let’s read the paragraph again, this time with proper punctuation. Was the second time through easier to understand? What made it that way? What happened to your voice as you read the first paragraph?

Write answers on your graphic organizer in the blanks provided.

Outline:
Ask: What is punctuation? What are some examples of punctuation? (Write the student’s examples on the board.) Good. We’re all familiar with punctuation. We all read and write. We will soon learn about how to properly use punctuation, but today I want to talk about punctuation in general. I want us to explore the nature and the origin of punctuation.
(Write these seven points on the board one at a time. As I write them on the board, the students write them on their graphic organizers.)
1. Punctuation developed gradually.
2. Punctuation only exists in written language.
3. Punctuation does not make noise.
4. Punctuation marks are symbols.
5. Punctuation imitates natural pausing and breathing patterns.
6. Punctuation fosters breaks in thought.
7. There is a set of rules governing the use of punctuation. (The rules developed
gradually.)
1) Punctuation developed gradually, over centuries and centuries, just like language. It’s changing, too, very very slowly, just like language. Just as no one is in charge of language, no one is in charge of punctuation. There is no single author of punctuation. There isn’t one old guy in Britain a long time ago who developed our punctuation system. Punctuation is a naturally occurring phenomenon in written language.
2) Punctuation only exists in written language. Question marks are technology, in fact- tools used to transfer spoken language into written language effectively. In speech we often indicate that we are asking a question by raising the pitch of our voice at the end of a sentence. (“You want to go to the park?”) We can’t do that in writing. In writing, we need the question mark. We can yell when we talk out loud, (Go to your room!) but we need exclamation marks in written language.
3) Punctuation does not “make noise”. They don’t indicate that the reader is supposed to make a sound. (Here they differ from letters.) You can’t mispronounce a comma; that’s absurd.
4) Punctuation marks are symbols. They represent something. For example, a period represents an indication to the reader that the sentence has come to an end, and a thought is completed.
5) Punctuation imitates natural pausing and breathing patterns. A big function of punctuation is it indicates when a reader should pause.
6) Punctuation fosters breaks in thought. Punctuation separates ideas from one another. In fact, since we learned from our linguistics lesson that oral language is primary and written language is secondary, it should come as no big surprise that punctuation mimics speaking patterns. Sentences and clauses existed before periods and capital letters did. So, punctuation describes what naturally occurs when people talk.
7) English speakers have gradually and naturally come up with rules for using punctuation. To communicate effectively in writing, we need to learn those rules. The rules developed gradually. Once you learn the rules, you can break them. Take E. E. Cummings, for example.

Check for understanding: Ask these questions:
Where did punctuation come from?
Does punctuation exist in spoken or written language?
Do punctuation marks “make noise?”
How does punctuation foster effective written communication?
Is it important to use punctuation correctly? Why or why not? Or does it depend on the situation?

Closure: Good. Later we’ll look at each individual punctuation mark and talk about how to use it properly.



Graphic organizer for the lesson on the introduction to punctuation

ant bodies like those of other insects have an exoskeleton meaning their bodies are externally covered in a protective casing as opposed to the internal skeletal framework of humans and other vertebrates ants do not have lungs oxygen passes through tiny valves the spiracles in their exoskeleton the same holes through which carbon dioxide leaves their body nor do they have a heart a colorless blood the hemolymph runs from their head to rear and back again along a long tube their nervous system is much like a human spinal cord in that it is a continuous cord the ventral nerve cord from head to rear with branches into each extremity

What was wrong with this paragraph?


How did the lack of punctuation obscure or inhibit your understanding of the paragraph? Give examples.

Ant bodies, like those of other insects, have an exoskeleton, meaning their bodies are externally covered in a protective casing, as opposed to the internal skeletal framework of humans and other vertebrates. Ants do not have lungs. Oxygen passes through tiny valves, the spiracles, in their exoskeleton — the same holes through which carbon dioxide leaves their body. Nor do they have a heart; a colorless blood, the hemolymph, runs from their head to rear and back again along a long tube. Their nervous system is much like a human spinal cord in that it is a continuous cord, the ventral nerve cord, from head to rear with branches into each extremity.

Was the paragraph with punctuation easier to understand? Why?



Other notes about punctuation:

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