AVOIDING FRAGMENTS AND RUN-ONS Eighth Grade Language Arts Sara Wohltjen BEGIN

AVOIDING FRAGMENTS AND RUN-ONS It is a Language Arts Department goal for the eighth grade to reduce the occurrence of fragments and run-ons in student writing.

To better achieve this goal, a StAIR project could be implemented allowing students to review and practice the identification and correction of fragments and run-ons. AVOIDING FRAGMENTS AND RUN-ONS

The audience for this project will be eighth grade English Language Arts students with a basic understanding of subjects and verbs. AUDIENCE

The instructional objective for this project is for students to review and practice the identification and correction of fragments and run-ons. INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVE

The GLCE’s that will be addressed by this project are as follows: INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVE W.PR Review and revise their compositions for coherence and consistency regarding word choice, cause and effect, and style, and they will read their own work from another reader’s perspective in the interest of clarity. W.PR Edit their writing using proofreaders’ checklists both individually and in peer editing group. W.GR Use style conventions (e.g., MLA) and a variety of grammatical structures in their writing including infinitives, gerunds, participial phrases, and dashes or ellipses.

Students will experience a variety of learning strategies through this project including INDUCTIVE, DEDUCTIVE, and COMPARE/CONTRAST. Students will also receive immediate feedback as they progress through their learning. PEDAGOGY

Students will experience deductive learning by seeing examples of fragments and run-ons, then receiving explanations and definitions. PEDAGOGY – DEDUCTIVE

PEDAGOGY – INDUCTIVE Students will experience inductive learning by being shown how to correct fragments and run-ons, then being shown examples and given an opportunity to practice.

PEDAGOGY – Compare/Contrast Students will experience the benefits of comparing and contrasting by being shown the differences among fragments, sentences, and run-ons.

ACTIVE RESPONSE/FEEDBACK Students will actively participate in their learning by practicing with the identification and correction of fragments and run-ons. They will receive immediate feedback to their responses.

EXAMPLE StAIR ELEMENT The following four slides provide an example of a StAIR element. They demonstrate DEDUCTIVE learning about fragments.

EXAMPLE StAIR ELEMENT Mark and his friends. (What about them?) Threw the baseball. (Who threw the baseball?) FRAGMENTS Around the corner. (Who is? What happened?)

EXAMPLE StAIR ELEMENT A fragment is a group of words that does not express a complete thought. Something important is missing, and you are left wondering What is this about? or What happened?

EXAMPLE StAIR ELEMENT A fragment may be missing a SUBJECT… Threw the baseball. (Who threw the baseball?) A fragment may be missing a VERB… Mark and his friends. (What about them?) A fragment may be missing BOTH… Around the corner. (Who was? What happened?)

EXAMPLE StAIR ELEMENT You can correct a fragment by adding the missing part of speech. Add a subject: Rob threw the baseball. Add a verb: Mark and his friends laughed. Add both: A dog ran around the corner.

EXAMPLE StAIR ELEMENT These learning opportunities would be followed with practice sentences in which students would be given a sentence or fragment and be asked to identify them. They would then be given fragments and be asked to correct them.

AVOIDING FRAGMENTS AND RUN-ONS By using a StAIR to review/teach/ reinforce the identification and correction of fragments and run-ons, students learn in a fun, effective, and meaningful way. END