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Monday, March 31, 2014

Language Arts - What's So Important? A Coordination and Subordination Activity

Language Arts - What's So Important? A Coordination and Subordination Activity cover
When trying to show the importance of ideas, speaking tends to be so much easier. Word choice- along with the chance to instantly replace words for clarity- a tone of voice that expresses which ideas are emphasized, and even the speaker's body language work together to create sentences where thought coordination or subordination are evident.

Writing, though, is much more difficult. The writer has many rough drafts, but one final opportunity to demonstrate which thoughts show coordination, and which ones reveal subordinate ideas.

For example, maybe I want to show that Zelda's and Bubba's responsibility about homework is the same. I would write, "Zelda and Bubba both turn in their homework ninety percent of the time."
(I bet that their teacher is happy with this excellent data!)

But what if I want to emphasize that Zelda is more responsible than Bubba? I might write, "Although Zelda is conscientious about always meeting homework deadlines, Bubba is undependable about completing his assignments.

That information in that sentence is correct, but the emphasis is on Bubba's lack of responsibility because this idea is in the Independent Clause- always the clause that shows the most important idea.

This activity, "What's so Important? A Coordination and Subordination Activity" offers Middle School and High School students three different activities to practice showing What is So Important.


Language Arts - What's So Important? A Coordination and Subordination Activity p.4Language Arts - What's So Important? A Coordination and Subordination Activity p.5Language Arts - What's So Important? A Coordination and Subordination Activity p.6



What's So Important? A Coordination and Subordination Language Arts Lesson is aligned with the Common Core standards and Bloom's Taxonomy, but will easily meet the needs of individual state's benchmarks.

Middle School and High School students will find that their verbal and written misunderstandings will diminish when they master "What's So Important".


Your students will be thrilled when you, "Please don't let us be misunderstood." 

I paraphrased these words from the song written by Bennie Benjamin for Nina Simone (1964) and also sung by The Animals (1965), and Santa Esmerelda (1977).

Happy Teaching,


Teach it Write
Building Powerful Academic Homes


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