Commas Lesson Plan: Conventions of Standard English

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Commas Lesson Plan. 

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Commas, and supports the standard of using punctuation to indicate a pause or a break. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.


Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display this image from the movie (timestamp: 0:17):

Ask students:

  • If you saw the sentence “let’s eat students”, what would you think it means? ?
  • How could a comma correct the meaning of the sentence?  

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

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

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign the Comma Challenge and 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 commas 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: Create a commercial for punctuation that advertises the importance of commas by explaining how they make writing clear and easy to read in different situations. 
  • Make-a-Map: Use examples to explain the role of commas in different situations, like sentences with nonrestrictive clauses, independent clauses, or lists. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a game where players determine whether or not a sentence needing a comma is punctuated correctly.

More to Explore

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of punctuation with these topics: Clauses, Sentence Fragments, and Run-On Sentences.

Teacher Support Resources:

Filed as:  3-5, 6-8, BrainPOP, Commas, Lesson Ideas, Lesson Plan