Category Archives: Independent Practice

This week’s Text is a lesson plan on the demonstrative pronouns. What are the demonstrative pronouns? They are four simple words: this, that, these, and those. 

I open this lesson with this worksheet on the homophones to, too, and two. In the event the lesson continues into a second day (an eventuality for which I always prepare), here is a second do-now, this one a Cultural Literacy worksheet on italics. The principle work for this lesson is this scaffolded worksheet. To make teaching the lesson a bit easier, here is the teachers copy of the same worksheet I prepared for my own use.

This lesson gives students an opportunity to try out their procedural knowledge, which the lessons prior to this one introduced in various ways, of subject-verb agreement in declarative sentences. These four words have simple, but elegant rules: this and that always govern the use of a singular noun and singular verb form; these and those, of course, govern the use of a plural noun and a plural verb form. I worked in college writing centers for several years, and one of the most common writing lapses that moved people to visit was subject-verb agreement in number. So–stress this skill, I would say.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.