When I was observing this week my supervisor wanted to me to teach a 10 minute lesson, but I ended up teaching a lesson for the whole period. I taught my class about punctuation. I first asked them what types of punctuation marks are there and when do you use them as a Do Now. They answered and knew a majority of them. Then we went over a paragraph and i asked them to punctuate it together as a class. The class simply did not get it. I tried explaining to them the best that I can. I gave an example for each punctuation mark and they still did not understand why a comma was used as in the way it was used.
As a teacher how would you go about trying to get your class to understand grammar without spoon feeding it to them?
I put them in pairs too, but it simply did not work. I am student observing in a difficult district, but still I want them to understand this for future jobs and everything.
My recommendation is to teach each punctuation mark one at a time. To teach all of the punctuation marks together can be confusing for students. Commas especially can be tricky, so break down all the uses of commas for students. Model all of the uses, and then have them try it. Working in pairs can be good for formative assessments.
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