Grammar Toolkit Lesson Plans for Middle School

Grammar Toolkit Lesson Plans for Middle School: Mentor Text-Based Grammar Lessons for the Middle School English Classroom contains detailed grammar lesson plans for teachers in grades six, seven, and eight. The lesson plans in this book incorporate the research-based best practices of grammar instruction. They present grammatical concepts in the context of effective writing through the use of mentor texts. These mentor text examples, which students read from a writer's perspective, deepen students' metacognition of the importance of these concepts and help them see the elements of grammar as tools for strong writing that authors use strategically to make their work as strong as possible. The thorough plans in this book are designed to help teachers put the best practices of grammar instruction into action in their teaching in concrete, practitioner-oriented ways that are informed by key research findings on the teaching of grammar. The ideas, examples, and instructional suggestions in this book will give teachers the necessary resources to incorporate mentor-text-based grammar lessons that develop students' metacognition of the tools of effective grammar and communication.

Sean Ruday (he/him/his) is a professor and program coordinator of English education at Longwood University.

Introduction: The Power and Possibility of Mentor Text-Based Grammar Lessons Section One: Lesson Plans Recommended for the Sixth-Grade English Classroom Lesson 6.1: The Case of Communication: Pronoun Case Lesson 6.2: Bringing the Intensity: Intensive Pronouns Lesson 6.3: Adding and Clarifying: Punctuation that Sets Off Additional Information Lesson 6.4: Developing and Describing: Adjectives Lesson 6.5: Explanation and Impact: Adverbs Section Two: Lesson Plans Recommended for the Seventh-Grade English Classroom Lesson 7.1: Developing Ideas: Prepositional Phrases Lesson 7.2: A Descriptive Tool: Relative Clauses Lesson 7.3: Strong and Specific: Strong Verbs and Specific Nouns Lesson 7.4: Shades of Meaning: Connotation and Denotation Lesson 7.5: Intentional Sentence Construction: Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Section Three: Lesson Plans Recommended for the Eighth-Grade English Classroom Lesson 8.1: Purposeful Structures: Active and Passive Voices Lesson 8.2: Time for a Break: Punctuation that Indicates a Pause or Break Lesson 8.3: Key Comparisons: Comparative and Superlative Degrees Lesson 8.4: Tools for Variety and Versatility: Using Verbals Lesson 8.5: The Many Moods: The Indicative, Imperative, Interrogative, Conditional, and Subjunctive Verb Moods Section Four: Final Thoughts and Resources Conclusion: Using This Book to Maximize Grammar Instruction Appendix A: Annotated Bibliography of Mentor Texts Appendix B: Reproducible Graphic Organizers