Summary
Of all of the amazing skills that students possess, perhaps there is none greater than the ability to argue! Throw a grammar lesson in front of them, and most tune out immediately—the subject matter simply does not get them excited–-but tell your students that the goal for the day is to get into an argument and win, and you might just have them hooked. In this lesson, students will identify and use the four main parts of speech in order to develop a basic understanding of how word choice affects perception. Through writing, debating, and presenting, students will collaboratively argue for a particular part of speech's usefulness. Students will also apply what they learn to other genres of writing. While this lesson is currently aligned only to 11th grade standards, it would be appropriate to teach in grades 9 through 12, adjusting standards as needed.
Essential Question(s)
How can our word choice affect the message we want to convey as writers?
Snapshot
Engage
Students complete a Quick Write centered on parts of speech. Interesting rules limit how students can respond to questions about their lives.
Explore
Students transform sentences through their word choices. They then discover how writing changes when key adjectives, adverbs, verbs, and nouns are omitted or included.
Explain
Students collaboratively strategize to convince their classmates that one part of speech is superior to another by using debate techniques such as constructing a logical argument and offering rebuttals to defend their position.
Extend
Students locate real-world instances of parts of speech playing a significant role in how ideas are expressed in the media.
Evaluate
Students' presentations of their group project in the Explain section are evaluated using a set of criteria. Students metacognitively reflect on their learning.
Materials
Lesson Slides (attached)
The Power of Words (attached; one per student)
Thief Caught Stealing Documents (attached; one per student)
Nazi Thief Caught Stealing U.S. Military Documents (attached; one per student)
Vocabulary Terms and Examples (attached; one per student)
Computer and projector
Student devices
Wifi or internet connection
Student notebook or paper
Pen or Pencil
Markers, crayons, or colored pencils (optional)
Poster paper or construction paper (optional)
Engage
In the Lesson Slides, introduce students to the essential question on slide 3 and the objectives on slide 4.
Go to slide 5, which poses a very simple question to the students: “Which of the four main parts of speech do you feel is the most important to the English language?" As you click through the slide, each click shows one of the parts of speech; noun, adjective, verb, and adverb. Many students may have a difficult time remembering the details of the four main parts of speech. If this is the case, pass out the attached Vocabulary Terms and Examples handout which defines and provides each part of speech for the students. Call on individual students to explain the function, or definition, of each of these.
Once you have taken students through a brief review discussion, ask them to bring out their journals, or something to write on. Go to slide 6, and have them use the Quick Write strategy for a few minutes on the following prompt: “Which of the four main parts of speech, (noun, adjective, verb, adverb) do you feel is the most important to the English language?”
Give students about 5-10 minutes to think on this question and respond in writing.
Explore
Transition by informing your students that you want them to experience the importance of each of the parts of speech. Tell them that for the next couple of minutes, they get to write about themselves, but that you, as the teacher, are going to place some interesting rules on how they can write.
Lead students through the following writing exercises :
Go to slide 7. In two sentences, tell me about your dream car. Tell me what it is that you like so much about this car, but I want you to write this sentence without using any adjectives. (Give students about 3-4 minutes to write.)
Go to slide 8. In one sentence, tell me what you want to be when you get older. What do you want to do with your life? I want you to write this sentence without using any nouns.
Go to slide 9. In one sentence, tell me what you ate for lunch yesterday. Did you enjoy your lunch? You can’t use any adverbs in your sentences. (Remind students that adverbs can tell “How? When? And To what extent?” These are words like “extremely,” “very,” “yesterday”).
Go to slide 10. Finally, tell me what you plan on doing when school gets out today. This can be as short or long as you want, but you can’t use any verbs. (Remember, verbs describe actions. This may be very difficult for most students. That’s the idea!)
Go to slide 11. Facilitate a class discussion around which questions were easier to answer and which rule was the hardest to follow. Provide students with time to discuss what was easiest and what was most difficult.
Go to slide 12. To further emphasize the idea of how all four parts of speech are important to effectively communicate, pass out the attached The Power of Words handout with the series of simple sentences which are devoid of important parts of speech. Allow students to play with these sentences, adding necessary words, and discuss how basic sentences can be completely transformed by the words they choose to use. More direction is provided in the handout's directions.
Pass out the attached sample news report, Thief Caught Stealing Documents, and instruct students to read it individually.
Instruct students to verbally summarize the article in their own words to a partner.
Ask students: "Have readers been given any information that would indicate the author’s opinion concerning the events that take place in the article?"
Next, give students the attached Nazi Thief Caught Stealing U.S. Military Documents handout. This contains the same article, only some important adjectives and adverbs have been inserted that provide more detail and set the tone of the article in a quite different way.
It is clear now that this is a story about a Nazi sneaking into a government facility. Notice that the date has been further explained as being in 1944, during World War II.
Encourage students to spend about five minutes reading through the article. Tell them to circle or highlight any adjectives and adverbs that the author uses to provide details on the event that has taken place.
Go to slide 13. Open the floor for discussions about the article. Take students through a discussion about the differences between the two articles. Guiding questions for discussion include:
What differences do you notice between the two articles?
Are these two articles recounting the same event?
Does one version of the article force the reader to assume certain things?
Do you, as readers, get a better sense of the author’s opinion in the second article?
What are some words that helped you understand the author’s opinion?
Which article seems to make the event out to be a much bigger deal?
What details have been included to provide the reader with more important information?
Did this article seem as big of a deal before the adjectives and adverbs were included?
Explain
This is the portion of the lesson in which students put their knowledge of the different parts of speech to the test and battle it out! As a simple grammar formative assessment, students should group up according to the parts of speech and prepare a basic argument to debate why their specific part of speech is the most important.
Go to slide 14. Assign each of the students one of the parts of speech, and have them group up according to their assignment.
Once students are in their groups, tell them that, as a team, they are going to defend the part of speech that they have been assigned.
Give the groups about 10 minutes to develop basic arguments for their parts of speech. Tell them that, not only do you want them to convince the class of the importance of their part of speech, you want them to convince the others that the other three parts are less significant.
Notice how the examples below show the importance of the part of speech as well as how a weakness of the other parts of speech. If students struggle initially, providing them with an example would be helpful.
To conclude this section, students need access to a computer lab. Instruct students to develop a brief presentation, explaining their understanding of the role that their part of speech plays in communication.
Go to slide 15. Tell students: As a group, I want you to develop a simple slide deck presentation that communicates some of the points you made in your argument. The presentation needs to include the following elements:
A brief definition of your part of speech: Provide a formal definition from a dictionary or online resource as well as a definition in your own words.
Samples of sentences using your part of speech effectively: Highlight or underline the part of speech for those of us viewing your presentation.
List out the two or three statements you used to defend your part of speech as the most important of the four parts of speech.
Finally, give some example sentences showing how communication can breakdown without your part of speech (i.e., Sentences without nouns won’t make much sense, or sentences without verbs will have no action, etc.).
Students should present their arguments to their classmates. Groups should be prepared to offer rebuttals to those who might oppose their argument (i.e., the other groups).
Extend
To further extend this lesson, get your students looking for the parts of speech in everyday life. These extensions reinforce the importance of how language drives communication and alters our perception of what is going on in the world around us.
Go to slide 16. Challenge students to pay close attention to news reports, television ads, billboards, and even music they listen to. Ask them to bring in examples of how certain parts of speech play significant roles in how ideas are expressed.
One great example might be the coverage of current events, such as an election. Perhaps students can gather reports of candidates from various news sources around the country to examine how the choice of words used by different media outlets reflects the varying perspectives and opinions of the wars.
Perhaps students can assist your front office in writing the daily announcements. Ask your principal if students can take the morning announcements and spice them up with a few adjectives and adverbs.
Evaluate
Student presentations should be evaluated using the criteria mentioned in the Explore section.
Go to slide 16. As a reflective evaluative piece, students could complete a 3-2-1. This instructional strategy allows students to reflect on their learning. You can pose the following three questions for students to answer:
What are 3 things you learned?
What are 2 questions you still have?
What is 1 thing you found interesting?
Students could share out their 3-2-1 responses with a small group or in a whole-class setting.
Resources
K20 Center. (n.d.) 3-2-1. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/117
K20 Center. (n.d.) Quick Write. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/1127