Lesson plan
The Missing Link
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to use transitional words and conjunctions to join ideas in writing.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Invite students to close their eyes and imagine that they are in a car or bus, when suddenly the driver slams on the breaks. What happens? How do they feel?
- Tell the students that just like that scenario, sometimes readers feel an abrupt change when writers don’t use transitional phrases.
- Explain to the students that they will be learning how to link ideas using conjunctions and transition words in their writing.
Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling
(10 minutes)- Demonstrate the concept of using conjunctions or other transitional words in a variety of contexts such as the following: for the purpose of contrast (but), for a collection of objects (and), as a cause (because), to show a result (so), as a condition (if), or to provide additional examples or support (in other words).
- Write these examples on the board or a piece of chart paper for students to reference later in the lesson.
Guided Practice
(15 minutes)- Divide students into groups or pairs.
- Distribute six to eight colored pieces of paper (two different colors) to each group.
- Tell the students to use one colored strip for the transition word or conjunction and the other color for the content that is connected.
- If needed, model the process of writing sentences using the different colors of paper.
- Give the class several transition words or conjunctions to use as connections in parts of their sentences. For example, the following words can be used: and, but, for, nor, yet, after, although, because, since, though, unless, in other words, for example.
- Give the students time to create sentences that include the use of transition words or conjunctions.
- Provide additional prompting or partial sentences if students need extra help.
- After all students have finished, invite them to share their work and place sentences in the pockets of the pocket chart.
Independent working time
(10 minutes)- Ask the students to complete the worksheet Linking Up Ideas.
- Circulate around the room and provide additional prompts as needed.
Differentiation
Support:
- Provide sentence frames or additional details for students who struggle to formulate sentences.
Enrichment:
- Pre-teach correlative conjunctions and have students formulate sentences with multiple conjunctions rather than single conjunctions.
- Invite students to explore multiple ways conjunctions and transitions can be used in different contexts.
Technology Integration
- In place of using the board or a pocket chart, display conjunctions or transition words using electronic flashcard tools.
- Use an interactive whiteboard to write part of a sentence and invite students to complete the remainder of the sentence on the interactive whiteboard.
Assessment
(5 minutes)- Give students a pair of ideas and ask them to write a sentence that includes transition words or conjunctions. Allow them to choose which conjunction to use.
- Check to see that students are formulating complete sentences that include appropriate conjunctions and transition words.
Review and closing
(5 minutes)- Pair up students to be connection partners.
- Call out a transition word or conjunction and ask each pair of students to contribute part of a sentence and to use a conjunction or transition word to construct the whole sentence.
Related learning resources
The Missing Link
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Help your students fill in the missing links! With a focus on transitional words and conjunctions, your students will discover the links that will help them combine ideas in their writing.
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Conjunctions are words that link different parts of a sentence! Help your child learn to identify this part of speech in some sample sentences.
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Give your students the opportunity to practice combining ideas using transition words and conjunctions.
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