I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Clarity

Essential Question:

What role does punctuation play in reading for meaning?

Bridge:

Action Drawings

Content:

Punctuation: Period, Comma, Exclamation point, Question mark

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: To illustrate the need for punctuation in written language by relating it to pauses in spoken language.

Activity: Choose a story written by one of the children. Comment: "I'm going to read Tom's wonderful story, but I'm going to change it. I want you to listen and see if you can tell me how I have changed it." Read the story as though it had no punctuation. Discuss what happened. Choose four children to be punctuation marks: One a period, one a comma, one an exclamation mark, and one a question mark. Hang signs around their necks. Choose a good reader and coach the student. Let him/her practice a few times. The teacher could prepare a simple passage in advance. For example: "Sally Pig and Kevin Frog went on a picnic in a beautiful yellow car it was a breezy sunny and warm day suddenly bang they had a flat tire Kevin Frog stopped the car he got out to fix the tire Sally Pig tried to help Kevin jack up the car and she pushed this way when she should have pushed that way the car fell knocking Kevin Frog into a big deep and muddy puddle alongside the road what do you think Sally Pig did next" This passage needs: 6 periods, 1 exclamation mark, 2 commas, and 1 question mark. The children who are the punctuation marks stand in a straight line facing the class. The punctuation marks are told to listen to the story about to be read, and jump in when they think they should. (Tell them to jump once forward.) The children in their seats are told to watch and decide if the punctuation marks have jumped in at the right time. If not, they get to take their place. Have the passage read once while all listen. On the second reading, tell the punctuation marks to be ready. Play the game. Have several other passages ready so more of the children get to play.

Assessment: Fun the children have.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: To help them understand why we need the written word.

Activity: Emphasize the purpose of writing things down. Questions for the children: If we could be everywhere at once and see all the things that are happening in the world, would we need to read about things? If we could meet everyone in the world and talk to them and listen to what they have to say, would we need to read? Emphasis: We only write things down so people can have a part of us when we are not there. Writing things down is a way of experiencing and remembering things people say about all kinds of things: about Sally Pig and Kevin Frog, about animals, about the stars and the mountains and the oceans, about the weather, about machines and about people. When we talk, we have to pause so people can understand where one idea ends and another idea begins. That way people can understand what we mean. Punctuation marks are only pauses in speech. They are places where we stop when we are reading so we can understand the end of one sentence and the beginning of another. Divide the children into groups of five. Give each group a written passage of four to five sentences without punctuation. Be sure the passage needs a comma, an exclamation mark, and a question mark, we well as periods. Instruct the children that: One of them must be the reader, one the period, one the comma, one the question mark, and one the exclamation mark. Have them rotate in turn so that each child gets to play all five parts.

Assessment: Quality of the experience for the children.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: To teach the concept of period, comma, exclamation mark, and question mark through the use of metaphor.

Activity: Give each child a large piece of art paper. Instruct them to divide the paper into four sections. Tell them to draw four pictures. One of themselves stopping, one of themselves pausing, one of themselves being surprised, and one of themselves questioning.

Assessment: Quality of work in understanding the concepts.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: To reteach and reinforce concepts of the period, comma, exclamation mark and question mark.

Activity: Teacher instructs the children in proper use of above. Teacher can follow any good text and gear the information to needs of class.

Assessment: Student engagement in the lesson and teacher checking for understanding.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: To give further practice in use of punctuation marks.

Activity: Workbooks accompanying texts, worksheets devised by teacher.

Assessment: Quality of above.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: To personalize the learning so that students add something of themselves, do something with it.

Activity: Children write their own stories without punctuation. (Tell them to suspend the use of capitals because that would give too strong a hint.) Children hand in their stories to the teacher. On the back they state what punctuation marks are and where they are needed.

Assessment: Quality of stories and understanding of correct punctuation marks.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: To evaluate their understanding of the four punctuation marks taught and to remediate where necessary.

Activity: Teacher hands back children's stories after checking them for accuracy. (Through this process teacher can find the children who need more help.)

Assessment: Accuracy of stories in terms of punctuation.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: To share their stories with each other.

Activity: Assign each child a partner. Have then exchange stories. Each child inserts the proper punctuation. They correct each other's work. They them rewrite their own stories inserting proper punctuation and capitalization. Note: Inform the music teacher when you are doing this unit so s/he can capitalize on this to teach musical rests.

Assessment: Participation and accuracy.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: