Focus Plan
Texarkana Independent School District
GRADING
PERIOD:
Teacher:
1st 6 Weeks
PLAN CODE:
W7.1.4
Ables
Course/subject:
English Language Arts
Grade(s):
7
Time allotted
for instruction:
4 class periods
Title:
Lesson TOPIC:
TAKS Objective:
FoCUS TEKS and
Student Expectation:
Supporting TEKS and
Student Expectation:
Concepts
Developing Better Sentences
Using the sentence combining strategy to develop fluency and variety
in writing
Objective 1
The student will, within a given context, produce an effective
composition for a specific purpose.
(7.18) Writing/writing processes. The student selects and uses
writing processes for self-initiated and assigned writing. The
student is expected to:
(C)
revise selected drafts by adding, elaborating, deleting,
combining, and rearranging text (4-8).
(7.17) Writing/grammar/usage. The student applies standard
grammar and usage to communicate clearly and effectively in
writing. The student is expected to:
(A)
write in complete sentences, varying the types such as
compound and complex sentences, and use
appropriately punctuated independent and dependent
clauses (7-8);
(B)
use conjunctions to connect ideas meaningfully (4-8).
Processes
Enduring Understandings/Generalizations/Principles
The student will understand that
Writing is a process that includes prewriting, drafting, editing, and revising.
Proofreading
Effective writers examine their work for correct sentence structure.
Sentence structure
The effective use of a variety of sentence types makes writing more
interesting to the reader.
Sentence combining
Sentence combining, the strategy of joining short sentences into longer,
more complex sentences, is an effective method for helping writers to
develop fluency and variety in their own writing style.
 Division of Curriculum and Instruction  School Improvement Department  Texarkana Independent School District
I.
II.
Sequence of Activities (Instructional Strategies)
A.
Focus/connections
The teacher will hand out page one only of Focus Activity: I Am and have students
answer the six listed questions. No instruction should be given other than the directions
for the activity. After students have answered the six questions, the teacher will hand out
part two of the activity and show students how to combine the six sentences they have
written into one complete sentence. As a final activity, students may use the blank
bordered page to create a poem from the complete sentence. The poems could be
published by posting them on the walls of the classroom.
B.
Instructional activities
(demonstrations, lectures, examples, hands-on experiences, role play, active
learning experience, modeling, discussion, reading, listening, viewing, etc.)
1.
Objectives: The teacher should explain that the students have just used an
effective strategy for revising sentence structure and for creating more interesting
complex sentences. This lesson will focus on the strategy of sentence
combining.
2.
Lecture/Discussion/Group Practice: By using Sentence Combining:
Transparency 1, the teacher will illustrate how published writers create complex
sentences from combining simple sentences. The teacher should expose only
the kernel sentences on the transparency. As a group, the class will combine all
eight sentences into one complex sentence. After recording the sentence
generated by the class, the teacher will expose the sentence written by the
published author and lead a discussion comparing the two sentences. The
teacher should emphasize that writers have many syntactic choices and that
there is never only one way to compose a sentence.
C.
Guided activity or strategy
By using Sentence Combining: Transparencies 2 and 3, the teacher will provide guided
practice for the sentence combining strategy. After each set of kernel sentences is
exposed, the teacher will allow time for students to individually create new sentences.
The teacher will circulate through the classroom, monitoring student performance and
answering questions. Before proceeding to the next transparency, the teacher will ask
for volunteers to write their sample sentences on the board or on a transparency and to
discuss the choices they made with their class.
D.
Accommodations/modifications
E.
Enrichment
STUDENT PERFORMANCE
A.
Description
Students will complete the two exercises from Student Activity: Sentence Combining.
After the exercises are graded and returned to the students, the teacher should use the
transparency The Way the Author Wrote It to illustrate the original sentences. The
teacher also could ask for student volunteers to share different combinations of the same
sentences.
B.
Accommodations/modifications
For students requiring accommodations, the teacher could reduce the number of kernel
sentences to be combined into one sentence. Students could create compound
sentences rather than complex sentences. Instruction should emphasize the use of a
comma and a conjunction to combine two simple sentences. Another accommodation
could be to select only those kernel sentences which would require the insertion of
adjectives.
 Division of Curriculum and Instruction  School Improvement Department  Texarkana Independent School District
C.
iii.
IV.
Enrichment
For students who demonstrate mastery of the sentence combining strategy, the teacher
should focus on the development of the writer’s voice or style. To do this, the teacher
could provide samples of writings by well-known authors and have the students analyze
the elements by which those writers have demonstrated their own voice and have
established their own styles.
Assessment of Activities
A.
Description
Students will earn two grades over the lesson activities. The first grade will be
determined based on the focus activity and the student activity. The second grade will be
determined based on the multimedia project.
B.
Rubrics/grading criteria
Grading criteria is provided on Rubric: Developing Better Sentences.
C.
Accommodations/modifications
D.
Enrichment
E.
Sample discussion questions
1.
What is another way these sentences could be combined?
2.
By combining these sentences this way, is the meaning changed?
3.
How would you punctuate this complex sentence?
TAKS Preparation
A.
Transition to TAKS context
On the TAKS, the evaluation of objective 1 will be based on the student’s entire essay.
The teacher should provide opportunities for students to develop well-constructed
sentences before they progress to the development of paragraphs and then to entire
essays.
B.
Sample TAKS questions
TAKS objective 1 is assessed through a composition the student writes in response to a
prompt. The open-ended nature of the prompt allows students to address the prompt as
they choose as long as their composition is in standard English prose. (Note: Poetry is
not an acceptable form of response.) Students’ ability to use their own experience and
perspective helps them effectively express their ideas about the topic.
Sample writing prompts from previous Grade 7 Writing TAKS are as follows:
 Spring 2003 TAKS: “Write a composition about a time when something
unexpected happened.”
 Spring 2004 TAKS: “Write a composition about trying to do something you
thought was difficult.”
V.
Key Vocabulary
Sentence kernel, sentence combining, lot (as in “group”), salmon (color), hoisted
VI.
Resources
A.
Textbook
Glencoe Literature: The Reader’s Choice, Course 2 (Theme 1 Unit, pages 1-111)
 Division of Curriculum and Instruction  School Improvement Department  Texarkana Independent School District
B.
Supplementary materials
 Focus Activity: I Am
 Sentence Combining: Transparencies 1-3
 Student Activity: Sentence Combining
 Student Activity Transparency: The Way the Author Wrote It
 Rubric: Developing Better Sentences
C.
Technology
To reinforce the theme of What I Am, What I Want to Be, the teacher will assign a
variation of the multimedia project, A Self-Portrait (Glencoe Literature: The Reader’s
Choice, Course 2, p. 3). To create a multimedia self-portrait, students will use the
internet to collect photographs of people, places, or things that could be used as symbols
of their own lives. Students should consider their experiences, their interests and
hobbies, their family and friends, and their career goals. Students should consider not
only who they are now, but also who they want to be. For example, if students have a
love for music, they could locate a picture of a musical instrument or a favorite singer. If
students want to be a dancer, they could locate a photograph of a ballet star. For each
collected photograph, the student should write an explanation of how this photo
represents his/her own life.
After completing the multimedia project, the students could combine this pictorial selfportrait with the poem written for the focus activity and post these in the classroom.
VII.
FOLLOW UP ACTIVITIES
(reteaching, cross-curricular support, technology activities, next lesson in sequence, etc.)
Teachers can design their own sentence-combining activities by using short sentences
from student writing or other appropriate sources. For example, teachers who notice
many choppy sentences in students' writing can place these sentences on an overhead
for all their students to read. Teachers can then ask different students to combine orally
the short sentences in a variety of ways.
By participating in oral and written sentence-combining activities, students better
understand the ways in which sentence structure, usage, and punctuation affect
meaning.
Cross-curricular support: The multimedia project described in this lesson could be completed
through instruction in technology applications.
Next lesson in sequence: Writing Workshop: What I Am, What I Want to Be
VIII.
Teacher Notes
This lesson introduces the theme of What I Am, What I Want to Be, theme one in Glencoe
Literature: The Reader’s Choice. Student activities in this lesson also are based on reading
selections in the Glencoe unit. Although this lesson may be taught independently of the reading
text, it is recommended that the reading and writing lessons be integrated.
 Division of Curriculum and Instruction  School Improvement Department  Texarkana Independent School District