Minilesson+on+Hyphens

Stephanie Cogdill, ECI 430, October 11, 2012.

Recognizing and Using Hyphens

The purpose of this particular mini lesson fits in to a larger unit of teaching students to create professional looking and sounding paragraphs in their writing. This entails making sure that they spell items correctly, punctuate properly, and use language in an overall cohesive manner. A small part of this larger unit would be discussing when to use hyphens and what their purpose is.

Objective: Students will be able to correctly identify a hyphen and understand when to properly use a hyphen.

Materials/Technology Required: Whiteboard or Smartboard (for the teacher's explanations and examples) Paper and writing utensils for the students

Time: approximately 10 minutes

Instructional Procedure: 1. Ask students if they know what a hyphen is or looks like (find their prior knowledge related to this word) 2. Building upon any correct answers given in number one, inform students as to what a hyphen is and is used for a. give them examples of words that use hyphens b. differentiate between the hyphen and the dash 3. Have the students suggest words that they think might use hyphens (accept all answers, even if incorrect) a. using the examples that the students gave, go through each one on the board and explain why that particular word does or does not use a hyphen 4. After the student examples, put teacher created ones up a. have the students work silently on their own for about 1 minute in identifying which words need hyphens and which ones are fine without them b. after students have worked alone, have them work in small groups to compare their answers c. convene as a class after approximately 3-5 minutes of small group discussions to go over the correct answers 5. Explain to students how this fits in it creating a professional written work

Evaluation: For the evaluation, students would be given a small handout similar to the one they did in class together. Students would have to identify when it is appropriate to use a hyphen, and when it is inappropriate.