Description

What our Commas lesson plan includes

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Commas equips students to both identify the rules for comma usage and correctly use commas in their writing. They will learn eight rules for proper comma usage and will practice using commas in their writing and correcting the use of commas in other’s writing. This lesson is for students in 6th grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the orange box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For this lesson, the only supplies you will need are the handouts. To prepare for the lesson ahead of time, you can copy the handouts and prepare a long run-on sentence for the lesson opening.

Options for Lesson

Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One suggested addition to this lesson is to make copies of the opening run-on sentence for students to correct at their seats near the end of the lesson. You can also use the practice page for a homework assignment and the homework assignment for practice. Finally, you can use a novel from the students’ reading class to show the proper use of commas. 

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.

COMMAS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

Commas

The Commas lesson plan includes two pages of content. The lesson begins with a sentence that contains no commas and is, therefore, hard to read. The lesson then includes a version of the same sentence with commas. It’s much easier to read.

Commas are punctuation marks that tell you to pause between different parts of a sentence. We also use them to separate items in a list. We have a few different rules for using commas correctly. The more you learn about commas, the easier they will be to use. Commas are important to help people understand your writing. Once you start using the comma rules, it will become easier to understand when to use, or not use, a comma. An easy trick is to read your sentence aloud. If you think there should be a pause, put a comma there! The lesson also notes that you should avoid using too many commas.

Comma Rules

The lesson includes a table with eight comma rules. It includes the rule, its definition, and some examples.

Rule 1 — Setting the Scene: The words at the start of a sentence can tell you about the time, place, condition, or a fact. If you find this information at the end of the sentence, you don’t need a comma. If you find it in the middle, you use a comma.

Rule 2 — After Transitional Phrases: Transitional phrases start with words like however, therefore, as a result, and consequently. These words transition an idea from one sentence to the next.

Rule 3 — After an Interjection: Interjections are short words or phrases that show emotions like excitement. You can often find them at the beginning of a sentence. We also sometimes follow them with an exclamation point.

Rule 4 — Before a Conjunction: Conjunctions are words like and, or, and but. They join two sentences or independent clauses. You must make sure not to use a comma after every time you see the word and. We only use commas after and when we use it as a conjunction.

Rule 5 — Before and After Parenthesis: Parentheses contain information. This information can be an explanation, an afterthought, or a description of something. We sometimes offset parentheses with brackets, but we use commas more often.

Rule 6 — Lists: You must separate lists in sentences with commas. Each item must be separated. This applies to lists with three or more items.

Rule 7 — With Quotations: We use commas to separate quotations from the person talking.

Rule 8 — Other: We have many other uses for commas. Some of these include when addressing a person, between cities and states, and when writing dates.

COMMAS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Commas lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.

WRITE A STORY ACTIVITY WORKSHEET

Students will work with a partner to complete the activity worksheet. Each pair of students will write a story that contains at least 20 commas. They must use at least one comma for each of the nine rules. They will write a rough draft and will then write a final version after checking the spelling and punctuation. Each pair will read their story aloud to the class.

Students may also work alone for this activity, if you’d prefer.

COMMAS PRACTICE WORKSHEET

For the practice worksheet, students will add 33 commas where they are needed in a given story. They will then write a sentence for each of the comma rules, as included in the content pages of the lesson.

ADD COMMAS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

The homework assignment asks students to add commas as necessary to 25 different sentences.

Worksheet Answer Keys

This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. No answer key is provided for the activity worksheet as students’ answers will vary. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.