Activities to Teach Students to Use Subordinating Conjunctions
Learning how to use subordinating conjunctions is an important skill for students in their development of advanced writing skills. Subordinating conjunctions are essential in creating complex sentences, which are necessary in expressing different thoughts and ideas in a cohesive manner. It is, therefore, necessary for teachers to come up with various engaging activities that students can undertake to learn and master the use of subordinating conjunctions. In this article, we will discuss various activities that teachers can introduce to their students to help them develop an understanding of subordinating conjunctions.
1. Joining sentences: To introduce subordinating conjunctions, teachers can start by presenting simple sentences, and then ask students to join them with subordinating conjunctions. For example, the teacher can present two short sentences like “The sun is hot” and “I like to swim.” Students can join these two sentences to create a compound sentence using the subordinating conjunction “because.” The resulting sentence will be, “I like to swim because the sun is hot.” This activity can help students see how subordinating conjunctions work in linking ideas.
2. Identifying subordinating conjunctions: Students can be asked to read various samples of text that contain subordinating conjunctions. They can then be tasked with the job of identifying the subordinating conjunctions in each sentence. This activity will help them to develop an understanding of what a subordinating conjunction is and how it is used to join ideas.
3. Taking turns: This is another useful activity that can help students practice using subordinating conjunctions. Each student can be given a cue card with a question or statement that requires a subordinating conjunction to be used to connect it to another sentence. For instance, one card can say, “Although I was tired,” and another card can say, “I still finished my homework.” The student with the card that says “Although I was tired” will read it aloud, and the student with the “I still finished my homework” will continue to read their sentence, creating a sentence joined with a subordinating conjunction.
4. Sentence construction: In this activity, students can be asked to form sentences using subordinating conjunctions. Teachers can provide them with a list of subordinating conjunctions and a set of words. Students can then be asked to use the subordinating conjunctions provided to create sentences using the given words.
5. Writing a story: Teachers can provide a set of starter sentences that require subordinating conjunctions to join them and ask students to write a story using those sentences. The starter sentences should be ambiguous, meaning that there are several ways to complete the sentence. This activity will help students to use subordinating conjunctions while also being creative in their writing.
Finally, it is essential for teachers to provide feedback to students on their progress as they learn to use subordinating conjunctions. With sufficient practice, students will become proficient in using subordinating conjunctions in their writing. These activities and techniques serve to help students to understand how subordinating conjunctions work, resulting in improved writing skills and better expression of their ideas.