Minilesson
What's My Subject? A Subject-Verb Agreement Minilesson
Grades
9 - 12
Lesson Plan Type
Minilesson
Estimated Time
50 minutes
Publisher
ILA
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- Resources & Preparation |
- Instructional Plan |
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Overview
Reviewing subject–verb agreement doesn't have to be tedious. In this minilesson, high school students explore subject-verb agreement using real-life examples from newspapers and song lyrics. In addition to reviewing and identifying both correct and incorrect subject-verb agreement, students look at when it may be appropriate to use ungrammatical language and talk about the difference between formal and informal language. They then make up quizzes to share with their peers. The emphasis of the lesson is on asking students to discover how this important grammatical rule is used (or deliberately ignored) in a variety of settings.
From Theory to Practice
- We all learn grammar naturally as we acquire language skills. In teaching grammar, it is best to assume you are pointing out things that students already know inherently but not explicitly.
- Teachers need to show students that they can discover grammar wherever they find language.
- One key component of teaching real-world grammar is to show students the different grammatical structures that are used in formal versus informal settings, drawing attention in particular to the differences inherent in writing and speaking.
Common Core Standards
This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.
State Standards
This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.
NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts
- 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
- 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
- 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
- 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
Materials and Technology
Computers with Internet access
Websites
Preparation
| 1. | Prepare to discuss subject-verb agreement with your students. You will want to have a basic definition available to share if they need it. Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers by Brock Haussamen, Amy Benjamin, Martha Kolln, and Rebecca S. Wheeler (National Council of Teachers of English, 2003) defines subject-verb agreement as follows:
Subject-verb agreement is "the matching of the number and person of the subject to the form of the verb. When the subject is third-person singular and the verb is in the present tense, the verb takes the -s inflection, as in: The dog barks all night. He bothers the neighbours. With other subjects and in other tenses, verbs (with the exception of be) do not change to match the number or person of the subject: I sleep, we sleep, he slept, they slept." (p. 106) |
| 2. | If you do not have computers with Internet access available in your classroom, reserve a 50-minute session in your school's computer lab. If there still aren't enough computers for each student to work independently, divide your class into pairs or groups. |
| 3. | Visit News Summaries and James Taylor lyrics - Rainy Day Man to familiarize yourself with these sites. Note that if your students are engaged in content-area research using other resources (i.e., additional newspaper or magazine websites), you may choose to use these instead. Add the sites you will use to the Favorites list on your classroom or lab computers. You may also want to visit Subject-Verb Agreement to determine if this website is a resource your students might find helpful. |
Student Objectives
Students will
- Review subject–verb agreement and demonstrate their comprehension by identifying and discussing subjects and verbs, by looking at whether or not they agree, and by creating quizzes for their peers
- Discover how subject–verb agreement forms vary in formal and informal English by looking at news headlines and song lyrics and by discussing the differences they see there
Instruction and Activities
| 1. | Assess what students already know about subject-verb agreement by asking them if they know what it means. If necessary, provide an explanation as you have prepared to do (see Preparation, Step 1). |
| 2. | Ask students to explore the News Summaries site and to read the headlines. Ask them to choose one or two that interest them most, to identify the subject and verb in each, and then to scan the articles that accompany them, collecting three or four sentences in which they also identify the subject and verb. |
| 3. | As students work, write the following questions on the board:
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| 4. | Once students have collected their sentences and identified the subjects, have them review their sentences orally and ask them to respond to the questions on the board. |
| 5. | If it is clear that students are having trouble identifying subjects and verbs, you may choose at this point to have them visit the Subject-Verb Agreement website. Otherwise, ask them why they think it matters that the subject and verb always agree in a newspaper article. Can they think of instances when this agreement is less important? Discuss the fact that if we were writing a paper, giving a speech to our class, or talking at a job interview, we would use more formal English but that if we were chatting with our friends we might not always observe the rules of subject-verb agreement. (For example, we might say something like "either of the outfits are great.") Ask if there are times in written English when the agreement might deliberately be incorrect (e.g., in the dialogue of a story or play). If you have read any books or plays recently where characters speak in dialect, you might point to these as examples. |
| 6. | Have students visit the James Taylor lyrics - Rainy Day Man website and ask them to read the lyrics to "Rainy Day Man." Once they have done so, ask them how the song describes the rainy day man. Students will provide answers such as, "Now, rainy day man, he don't like sunshine, he don't chase rainbows, he don't need good times...." Write these examples on the board. |
| 7. | Now ask students if there is a problem with these sentences. They should be able to point out how they are grammatically incorrect. Once they have done so, ask them to correct the sentences; write the corrections on the board. |
| 8. | Read the corrected sentences aloud. Ask students what the difference is between the corrected sentences and the song lyrics. Questions for discussion include:
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| 9. | To encourage students to demonstrate what they have just learned, ask them to create a quiz for their classmates to identify subjects in sentences. Their quizzes should have four or five sentences; they can imitate the sentences they collected from the news articles or use the Subject-Verb Agreement website as a model. To make sure they write meaningful and challenging sentences turn this activity into a competition in which only those who have identified the subject in more complex sentences will get points. You might want to provide a sample sentence to show students what you mean by complex. For example: J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, together with John Grisham, author of numerous best-selling thrillers, (IS/ARE) among the most widely-read writers in the United States. |
Extensions
- Have students use the online Crossword Puzzle tool to create a crossword puzzle where the clues are fill-in-the-blank sentences with the verb left out and the infinitive of the verb list at the end of the sentence, e.g., My sisters __ all English teachers (to be). Students can solve each other's puzzles online or print and swap puzzles. See Creating Puzzles: A Guide for Teachers for more information.
- Students who are taking the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) might want further practice on these websites:
Student Assessment / Reflections
- Informally assess students’ comprehension during discussion. Are students able to correctly identify the subject and verb in sentences? Do they know when the verb agrees correctly?
- Collect students’ quizzes and check them for accuracy. You might also collect and check peer responses.
- The Subject–Verb Agreement website has three different quizzes that allow users to score themselves at the end. Each quiz also provides explanations of why answers are correct or incorrect. Have students complete one or more of the quizzes independently and check their work. You might also have them write down the answers they got wrong and the explanation of the rule.
Love your lesson plan - unfortunately, I work with Upward Bound, which has no computers - not much of a budget! After a little nipping and tucking, I'm sure this lesson will work out well! Thank you!
Love your lesson plan - unfortunately, I work with Upward Bound, which has no computers - not much of a budget! After a little nipping and tucking, I'm sure this lesson will work out well! Thank you!
Love your lesson plan - unfortunately, I work with Upward Bound, which has no computers - not much of a budget! After a little nipping and tucking, I'm sure this lesson will work out well! Thank you!
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