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The Phrase

L.7.1c. Place phrases and clauses within a sentence, recognizing and correcting misplaced and dangling modifiers.

Writing sentences with phrases~prepositional, infinitive, and gerund~is a higher-order thinking and writing skill. For a seventh-grader to consistently write with a variety of sentence structures is something that just doesn't happen often. In my Language class, the students are learning to identify phrases and to use phrases in their own writing. If I give them a multiple choice assessment in which they have to identify the phrase, they do pretty well~the last assessment had a class average of over 75%. But, if I ask them to read a sentence and write the phrase, they don't do as well. It is even more difficult for them to write a sentence using phrases creatively~especially at the beginning of the sentence. I'm finding that I need to go slowly and break the skill into small steps~constant review at the beginning of class helps also.

Here is an example of how I might break it down for them:

Read the following sentence and identify the prepositional phrase.

"On his two feet, he proudly sported Homer Simpson house-slippers."

Now, rewrite this sentence with the prepositional phrase in a different place in the sentence.

(example: He proudly sported Homer Simpson house-slippers on his two feet.)

This doesn't seem like a difficult skill; but does it translate or carry over to independent writing? Usually not at this stage. The only way that seventh-graders will actively use a variety of sentence structures (like using prepositional phrases at the beginning of a sentence) is if I specifically make it a part of the rubric for the writing.

This week the students will review prepositional phrases and move on to specifically identifying adjective phrases~those phrases that act specifically like adjectives and add interest to a sentence.

He proudly sported house-slippers with the face of Homer Simpson grinning stupidly up at him.

Here are some links with lessons for teaching prepositional phrases:

http://writingfix.com/right_brain/Story_Starting_Prepositional_Phrases1.htm

http://writingfix.com/PDFs/Writing_Tools/Facts_about_prepositions.pdf

http://teachershare.scholastic.com/resources/12136

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/polishing-preposition-skills-through-1100.html