This Lesson's Title:

Combining with Participial Phrases

verbs (serving as adjective phrases) that launch action-packed sentences

This lesson idea was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Rebekah Foster at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The ideal "mentor text" that can be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Click here to view this book at Amazon.com.

If you are a Washoe County teacher, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Three-Sentence Overview of this Lesson:

After looking over the participial phrases used by author Debbie Allen in Dancing in the Wings, students will plan a descriptive paragraph about an action-filled experience a character might undergo. One of their sentences will use a participial phrases at its beginning, one will use a participial phrase at its end, and one will use a pariticipial phrase at its end. Students will double- and triple-check their sentences for correct punctuation of participial phrases. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.

6-Trait Overview for this Lesson:

The focus trait in this writing assignment is sentence fluency; learning how to begin sentences with participles is one way to show students the variety of ways that sentences can begin.  The support trait in this assignment is conventions; participial phrases require commas to separate them from sentences, and students are to learn how to separate them with this writing assignment.