LESSON EIGHT: Spelling, Capitalization, and Punctuation

LESSON DESCRIPTION

Working in a large group, teacher provides directed instruction with punctuation/capitalization/spelling of sentences and paragraphs.  Understanding is assessed as students write a paragraph, respond to a prompt, and apply correct punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. 

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS

o        W2C  The student will compose text using correct ending punctuation in declarative and interrogative sentences and commas in dates

o        W2B  Students will use conventions of capitalization in written text including days of the week and names of towns, cities, and states

o        W2E  In spelling, students will use correct spelling of words with simple spelling patterns and high-frequency words, using classroom resources to verify correct spelling.

LESSON MATERIALS

Sources of Literature

o        None

Supplies 

o        Chart paper

o        Soft ball

o        Writing prompts

o        Writing utensils

o        List of high-frequency words

Handouts provided

o       List of high-frequency second grade words

Words to know

o        declarative sentence

o        interrogative sentence

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Students are provided a prompt.  They write a paragraph responding to the prompt using correct punctuation, spelling, and capitalization.  An example of a prompt:  Johnny broke his brother’s toy car.  No one saw Johnny do it.  His brother is crying because his toy is broken.  What should Johnny do?

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

1.              State the objective, “Today we are going to practice spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.”  Students play a game called Ball Toss Spelling.  All students stand.  Throw the ball to a student.  That student will spell a word (words with simple spelling patterns and high-frequency words).  If the student is correct, they remain standing.  If the student is incorrect, they throw the ball back to the teacher and sit down.  The student is then out of the game.  The game is over when the last person is standing.

2.              Display a paragraph with capitalization, punctuation, and spelling errors.  Randomly ask students to come to the overhead to correct the mistakes.  Discussion each correction made.  An example of a paragraph could be: 

sally’s birthday was march 10 1995 she asked molly to go to a movie with her in delta  the movie was great molly got sally a doll for a gift both girls had a good day

3.              Display a prompt.  As a class, students write a paragraph on chart paper to respond to the prompt.   All capitalization, punctuation, and spelling must be correct.  The teacher facilitates as needed.