Punctuation Lesson Plan: Conventions of Standard English

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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Punctuation, and supports the standard of demonstrating command of the conventions of standard English punctuation. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display sentences including different types of punctuation, like the ones below: 

I already have hats in the following colors: purple, green, and red.
Tomorrow I will buy an orange hat; I can’t wait to match Moby!

Ask students:

• Which types of punctuation do you recognize? What do you know about their purpose?
• What types of punctuation do you wonder about?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Punctuation topic page.
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Assign Related Reading and have students read one of the articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
  

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign Punctuation Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about punctuation while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Produce a tutorial that explains how to use correct punctuation in a sentence.
• Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying the four types of sentences and an example sentence for each.
• Creative Coding: Code a conversation that includes each of the four types of sentences with correct punctuation.

More to Explore

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of conventions of standard English with these topics: Hyphens and Dashes, Colons, Semicolons, and Commas.

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.