Mini Lesson:The Importance of Punctuation using Lesson Story Connections (video)

Do your students need a little refresher about why punctuation is so very important to their writing?

Do you need the "refresher" to be both exciting and impactful?

Do you want to try something new and innovative for both you and your students?

Try my new idea known as: LESSON STORY CONNECTIONS (LSC). What is it? It "connects" a familiar/relatable story to an instructional teaching concept/topic. Another way to look at it is using prior knowledge to probe new knowledge, but in a story-telling way. Then voila, learning happens.... like magic!

I have used this method with my students and achieved much success. Here are some tips before, during and after the lesson.

• This is a mp4 video just so the animation of the car would remain. Everyone enjoys seeing movement on the lesson board. Please peruse the video before using and add extra examples of your own, or even use previously written student samples with it. This is important because it will help you to make the lesson your own.

• Please allow students the liberty to share, share, share during this lesson. In fact, probe them to come up with "other" traffic/driving concepts for writing that may work. Please, do more "showing rather than telling."

• Make this lesson hands-on, whether using it in-person or virtually. Ask students to draw what a traffic jam looks like. Brainstorm the feelings or emotions surrounding it. For younger learners, have them punctuate sentences correctly, on car cut-outs. Get this too though, some of the teens that I have used this lesson with are obsessed with cars as well, and had a whole lot of fun drawing, talking and making the connection between them and writing. Ahhh... it was so beautiful to watch it all unfold.

• Do Extend the lesson. After this lesson, I reviewed all of the common errors related to punctuation (comma splice, run-on sentences etc) I also used student examples (without the name) to show the difference in grading with writing that has correct punctuation and one that does not. Hence, this lesson may be used an an introductory lesson, a mini lesson or as a component of the Writing Process.

If you liked this Lesson Story Connection, be sure to click on the link below for others:

• Butterfly Sentences to teach Simple, Compound, Complex and Compound-complex