Grade 07 ELA - EC: E07.E.1.1.3
Grade 07 ELA - EC: E07.E.1.1.3
Continuum of Activities
The list below represents a continuum of activities: resources categorized by Standard/Eligible Content that teachers may use to move students toward proficiency. Using LEA curriculum and available materials and resources, teachers can customize the activity statements/questions for classroom use.
This continuum of activities offers:
- Instructional activities designed to be integrated into planned lessons
- Questions/activities that grow in complexity
- Opportunities for differentiation for each student’s level of performance
Grade Levels
7th Grade
Course, Subject
English Language Arts
Related Academic Standards / Eligible Content
Activities
- Define and understand the use of transitional phrases and words.
- Recognize how writers use transitions to create cohesion and clarify relationships among claims, reasons, and evidence.
- Determine effective transition phrases to use in writing.
- Classify transition phrases depending on their meaning or purpose.
- Develop sentences using the generative sentence approach to build stronger, cohesive sentences.
- Critique a written or spoken argumentative piece for words, phrases, and clauses that create cohesion and clarify the relationship among claims, reasons, and evidence.
Answer Key/Rubric
- Student defines transitional words as words that connect thoughts. Students recognize that although these words serve the same purpose, each transition word has subtle nuance and meaning.
- Students will recognize transition words and phrases in a written argumentative/persuasive essay. Students will evaluate the effectiveness of those words in creating cohesion among ideas.
- Student will identify which transition phrases they are most likely to use. Using a chart of transition phrases and words, students should look over the words and highlight which word/phrases they could incorporate into their writing. A good source is http://www.smart-words.org/linking-words/linking-words.pdf .
- Students will classify transition words by meaning. Using a list such as this https://emedia.leeward.hawaii.edu/lrc/handouts/Revised_Transitional%20Words%20worksheet%2004%203%202007.pdf, students can cut up the words and then organize them into categories of meaning.
- Student demonstrates an ability to build strong sentences using a strategy called “generative sentences.” Teachers can instruct students to write a sentence of a certain word length incorporating each of the transition words. Teachers can extend this to include new vocabulary words. This works to develop varied sentence structure and more complex writing.
- Student will demonstrate an understanding of how writers and speakers use transitions to build a cohesive argument. Students can critique the argument looking for transitions and how those helped to build a stronger, more cohesive argument.
