Grammar
A Curriculum Plan and Teaching Guide

 

Introduction

This Curriculum Plan is designed to help students with different aspects of Grammar by focusing on capitalization, punctuation, parts of speech, sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement, subject and predicate, and commas in a series. It provides a small activities that build up to a cumulative activity at the end.

 

Curriculum Standard(s)

These come from the Georgia Performance Standards for 4th grade Language Arts.

ELA4C1: The student demonstrates understanding and control of the rules of the English language, realizing that usage involves the appropriate application of conventions and grammar in both written and spoken formats. The student:

a. recognizes the subject-predicate relationship in sentences

b. uses and identifies four basic parts of speech (adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs)

c. uses and identifies correct mechanics (end marks, commas for series, capitalization), correct usage (subject and verb agreement in a simple sentence), and correct sentence structure (elimination of sentence fragments).

 

Aim/Purpose Statement

The Grammar curriculum web aims to help 4th grade students understand basic grammar rules of the English language by sending them on a quest to better understand these rules and hopefully become the winning class for the privilege to edit the school Literacy Book.

 

Rationale

Through this curriculum, students will explore different grammar rules of the English language.

Grammar is a growing problem in our 4th grade due to the new technologies of texting and emails. Students are now use to not capitalizing sentences and using punctuation. Sentence structure has worsened over the years due to upcoming technologies.

By studying the definitions of the grammatical terms, seeing examples and videos, completing quizzes, and completing the Skills Tutor lessons, students should gain an understanding of the importance of the these rules. Students will also have the opportunity to play interactive games to review these rules before completing a project at the end of the WebQuest. The project will consist of students working with partners or groups to present the information they have learned in various formats. The activities in "Grammar Guru Quest" are especially designed to help students understand these grammatical terms and rules.

 

General Educational Goals

This curriculum web was developed by a 4th grade teacher who was concerned that her students did not have a sufficient understanding of the importance of grammar rules. This concern was echoed by other 4th grade teachers at her school. She developed this curriculum web to help promote and engage students in learning various grammatical terms and rules.

 

Subject Matter Description

This curriculum is focused on the subject matter of grammar. It will cover the following:

 

Learner Description

The activities in this web are designed specifically for 4th grade students with a variety of learning styles. However, it can be used with younger, motivated students, or older students that need a review of these grammatical terms and rules.


Prerequisites

Before using completing this Curriculum Web students should be able to:

 

Learning Objectives

On completing this curriculum web, students will be able to:

 

Materials

During this curriculum web, the following materials will be needed or available for students:

 

Sequencing Learning Activities

 

Grammar Curriculum Plan Web

 

 

Instructional Plan

This curriculum plan is designed for students to complete based on their understanding of the grammatical terms and rules.

The teacher should first make sure students have access to the internet to view the Curriculum Web. Then the teacher needs to go over the Curriculum Web and project as a whole with the students. The teacher should also go over expectations for working in groups and completing the assignments. Some of the activities allow for students to work in groups. I suggest grouping students on different levels together. This way they can help each other out. If you have students that work well with others, that is also an option. The grouping is really up to the teacher and what works best in his/her own classroom.

  1. The first lesson the teacher should do is go over the various terms for the grammar rules being discussed. These can be found in the Curriculum Web page. This can be done as a whole class or individually. I would suggest doing the first one together to model what you expect students to do. Then you can have students do the rest independently. I would limit it to one or two definitions/rules in one day. It will depend on your learners. Some may want to work ahead. If they are able to do this and understand the material, that is fine.
  2. After your students have gone over the definitions for a particular rule and viewed the examples, there is a video or videos on the same page as well as a quiz. Your students need to do the entire page for that rule in one day. That is why I would limit it to one rule a day...no more than two. Since there are six rules total, this can take anywhere from 3-6 days depending on your class.
  3. Once your students have completed all of the rules/definitions for the terms on the Curriculum Web page, they may then begin the WebQuest. This WebQuest will take several class days to complete.
  4. Students may work on the WebQuest at their own pace if you allow this. If not, then you may want to set limits on how far they get each day on the WebQuest.
  5. First part of the Webquest: Students will define the vocabulary words. This will probably take 1-2 days total. It could take more depending on your students.
    1. Definitions:
      a. Review the following terms: subject, predicate, adjective, noun, verb, adverb, and fragments (sentence fragments). Students can review from the various sites on the Curriculum Web for each grammar rule. Students may also view videos to help them understand. They must also take a quiz on what they have learned.
      b. Use the following site to find the definitions to the terms. Definition Site You may use the following worksheet (print it out) or your spiral to record the definitions. Definition Worksheet.
      c. Use Blabberize or Wordle to recite or write the definitions. Be sure you save your work!
  6. Second part of the WebQuest: Students must have access to Skills Tutor in order to complete this. Our school has a license with this program. If your school does not have the program, then worksheets can supplement these assignments. The worksheets will just need to be based on the rules the Webquest and Curriculum Web cover. This may take several days to complete depending on your students. This is a great activity for students to work at their own pace since they have to be done individually.
    1. Skills Tutor:
      a. Complete the following activities on Skills Tutor. You must have the log-in information from your teacher. (For those that do not have access to Skills Tutor worksheets can take the place of the Skills Tutor activities. There may also be other interactive sites that are similar to Skills Tutor.
      1. Language Arts B Capitalization
      2. Language Arts B Punctuation (only complete through quiz 3-5)
      3. Language Arts B Usage
      4. Subject/Predicate handout - Look over
  7. Third part of the WebQuest: Students can play these various games on the skills they have learned to review. I would limit the time on the games. This could take days if you do not set a limit. There are several games to play, so I would allow students 2 days max to play the games. This is something they can come back to if they finish their work early. They can even play the games at home for review.
    1. Review Games:
      a. After you have completed the activities on Skills Tutor you may play the following games:
      1. Subject Predicate
        1. Sink or Swim
      2. Parts of Speech
        1. Grammar Blast (under 4th grade)
        2. Noun Dunk
        3. Mad Libs
      3. Capitalization/Punctuation
        1. Proofreading Makes Perfect
        2. The Plastic Fantastic (make sure you are under 4th grade)
      4. Commas in a Series
        1. Going to Work With Commas
      5. Subject-Verb Agreement
        1. 2Bee or Nottoobee
        2. Baseball Play by Play (make sure you are under 4th grade)
      6. Sentence Fragments
        1. Finding Fragments
  8. Fourth Part of the WebQuest:
    1. Project Creation: This can take several days. Students can work in groups to create the project. I would allow them about 5 days to work on their projects because you want them to be good and creative. Rushing this time will result in projects that are done poorly. Depending on how the creation is going, you may want to add more time to this. That will be up to you and how your class is working. Students may need guidance to get them started and help on using the various tools to create their projects. I have found allowing students to explore really helps because many times they can figure out the different programs on their own. They even find things I never knew were there.
        1. Using what you have learned in the previous activities, you will create a project with your partner to teach another class. You may create a pamphlet, presentation, comic (that is teaching the concepts), VoiceThread, digital story, or written as a creative story. Use your imagination and include all of the topics we have discussed. Remember you will be using this to teach another class about these topics.
  9. Sharing projects: Students should be allowed to share their projects with another class. You will need to set this up beforehand with another teacher in your school. It can be a teacher in the same grade level, or maybe the grade above or below. This could be used as a review for the 5th graders or a preview for the 3rd graders. It is always fun to see fellow students teaching as well. It gives the students a nice break from listening to the teacher.
  10. Final part of the WebQuest:
    1. Conclusion: Students will complete the summary on the conclusion page. This is a great way for them to reflect on what they have learned and their projects they have created. This should be the last part that students complete.
      1. Complete the summary on the conclusion page. You must answer these questions in at least one paragraph. Remember to follow the grammar rules you have just learned.
  11. Editing of the Literacy book: If your school produces a literacy book, your students can become the editors. Most will love this responsibility and feel very important. If you do not have a literacy book, maybe you could suggest it. Ours is just for the 3rd-5th graders. You could also have your students edit another class's work or their own class if needed.

**Enrichment: For students that finish early, you can have them create a new part to the Curriculum Web for you. They could come up with their own video to teach a certain skill or their own quiz. They could also complete a different project on what they have learned.

 

Note: The way I have mapped out this project, it should take about 22 days. This can be shorter or longer depending on your students and how fast they work. This is just a sketch. You may find things that work better for you and things you want to cut out. Here is just a map of the activities from above with the approximate amount of days:

Activity Days
Introduction 1 day
Curriculum Web Activities (definitions, examples, videos, quizzes)

6 days total (1/day)
WebQuest: Definition Activities 2 days
WebQuest: Skills Tutor 3 days
WebQuest: Games 2 days
WebQuest: Project 5 days
WebQuest: Sharing Projects 2 days
WebQuest: Conclusion 1 day
Total: 22 days

REMEMBER: This is an approximate guess. You may spend more or less days on a given activity. That is okay!

 

The following video tutorials will walk you through how students should navigate the site. It also give additional information on the Web Page.

Video Tutorial 1
Video Tutorial 2

 

Assessment Plan

In the Curriculum Web, there are quizzes on each topic that the student must take. This data will be sent to me in my Google Docs to let me know how each student did. There are also various assessments inside of the WebQuest. Students will also be assessed on the Skills Tutor activities they complete. I am able to log into Skills Tutor and see the results of each student on each of the activities they complete. I have also set it where they must make an 80% in order to move on to the next activity. I have also included a rubric for the final project that students will complete. The rubric is posted on the WebQuest for students to see how they will be graded. I will use this rubric to grade students on their final projects/presentations. I have also included a summary page for student to answer question based on the projects they complete. I will not grade the students answers for this, however, I will be checking for correct grammar usage in the paragraph they write. If any student is having trouble during the Curriculum Web or WebQuest, they will be pulled aside for extra help on these grammatical terms/rules before continuing the assignments.

 

Evaluation Plan

To evaluate this Curriculum Web, I will field-test the curriculum web with a whole class in a school setting. This upcoming year will be my test run. I will also ask other teachers in my school to evaluate the curriculum web. I have tested all of the links to make sure they work multiple times. I will also need to check them in my school to make sure nothing is blocked. I will also observe as my students complete the curriculum web and take any notes on what needs to be changed.


Contact Information

Niki Turco
4th grade teacher in Cobb County, GA
snturco@gmail.com

 


Last Updated on July 20, 2011 by Niki Turco.