Tag Archives: punctuation

For 26 June 2026, the Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal is the third lesson plan (of 17, the rest forthcoming) of the Introduction to Writing Sentences Unit, this one to assists students in differentiating between phrases in clauses in their writing, and and developing their understanding in how to use both in prose.

This parsing sentences worksheet, which calls upon students to identify nouns in five longish sentences (the worksheet is a half page) opens the lesson and settles students, presumably, after a class change. This scaffolded worksheet is the mainstay of the lesson. Here is a learning support on phrases and another on clauses that will help students complete the class work for this lesson. And here is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet to reduce your cognitive strain.

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.

This week’s Text is the second lesson plan of the Introduction to Writing Sentences Unit . This lesson introduces phrases. This lesson opens with this worksheet on the use of adjectives adverse and averse; this is a full-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and ten modified cloze exercises. These are a couple of relatively high-frequency words in educated discourse, so this is a vocabulary building in addition to its clear purpose in inculcating the concept of usage. It’s highly supported, but you can easily modify this Microsoft Word document.

This is the worksheet at the center of this lesson, It’s scaffolded, with some proofreading and copyediting exercises at the beginning, then independent practice working with phrases in sentences. This learning support on phrases, adapted from Grant Barrett’s Perfect English Grammar (Berkeley: Zephyros Press, 2016), should ease the process of completing this work. And here, finally, is the teacher’s copy of the worksheet.

Incidentally, I’d like to praise (not that anyone has asked me to do so) Grant Barrett’s book Perfect English Grammar (Berkeley: Zephyros Press, 2016). Over the past 35 years, I have looked at or read cover to cover an enormous number of grammar and style manuals. For the mechanics of writing, simply but effectively stated, I think Mr. Barrett’s book is the best in print at the moment.

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.

Today is the first Friday of Native American Heritage Month 2023 in the United States (Canada observes this month in June as National Indigenous History Month). I have materials to post, including a couple of Cultural Literacy worksheets today.

However, in order to keep them in a relatively tight series, this morning I post the fifteenth and final lesson plan of the Styling Sentences Unit, this one on sentences with a series of lively pairs. Nouns are one of the workhorses of the English language (along with verbs), and this lesson illustrates for students how solid, concrete nouns that appeal to the senses make prose come alive.

This lesson opens with this on parsing sentences to find conjunctions. This scaffolded and supported worksheet is the primary work of the lesson. Finally, here is a learning support in the form of a word bank to help students master this sentence form using pairs of lively nouns or noun phrases.

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.

Believe it or not, after all these weeks, we’re down to the penultimate lesson in the Styling Sentences Unit: ergo, this week’s Text is the fourteenth lesson plan in the series, this one on what strikes me as an important area of English usage and punctuation, using the serial comma.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find adjectives. Here is the scaffolded and supported worksheet that is the centerpiece of the lesson. Finally, here is a learning support on using the serial comma.

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.

This week’s Text is the thirteenth lesson plan in the Styling Sentences Unit. This lesson deals with the compound sentence with an explanatory statement, with the two clauses separated by a colon. Like all of the lessons in this unit, about which, as I have prepared them for publication, I have unfortunately had many of my misgivings reinforced, this one aims to assist students in developing their own understanding of compound sentences, how to build them, and how to punctuate them.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find verbs. Here is the explanatory text with a learning support on the use of colons, the latter excerpted from Grant Barrett’s excellent manual Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking (Berkeley: Zephyros Press, 2016). Finally, here is the scaffolded and supported worksheet that is the principal work of this lesson. There are mentor texts along with explanatory texts, so while the documents are relatively complete for this lesson, I still sense something is missing. Or is it that this lesson is just too much for the average high school student? I like to think not, but what do you think?

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.

OK, your Weekly Text for today is the twelfth lesson plan of the Styling Sentences Unit, this one, as the headline reports, on writing a compound sentence separated with semicolon and no conjunction.

This lesson opens with this worksheet on parsing sentences to find prepositions. The principal work of this lesson for students, either independently or–preferably–in groups, is this scaffolded and supported worksheet. Unlike the work for every lesson from this unit posted so far, this worksheet straddles a line between highly supported work, i.e. sentence stems and cloze exercises, and the considerably less supported worksheets in this unit that call upon students to emulate often complicated mentor texts. Finally, here is a learning support on semicolons and their use in compound sentences.

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.