High School Lesson on Prepositions
Prepositions are words that show the relationship between nouns and pronouns within sentences. They occur at the beginning of a prepositional phrases, and often serve as transitions between ideas. Although in elementary school, many students memorize a list or song of prepositions, high school students need to dig deeper to understand the true relationship between prepositions and other words in the sentence.
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Prepositions of Location
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Prepositions of location tell where an object is in relation to something else. This use of prepositions is very clear-cut, and examples include words like "above," "below," "over," "in" and "under." Physical practice is a good way to learn this type. Students can write individual prepositions of location on note cards. Students can then take turns "acting out" the individual preposition and having the classmates guess. For instance, a student can crouch "below" the desk to show the relationship between the desk and the boy.
Prepositions of Spacial Relations
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Prepositions of spacial relations show how to objects are connected to each other. Common prepositions of spacial relations include "among," "between," "beside" and "beneath." To understand these more clearly, students can play a drawing game. Place students on two teams. Each player selects a card with a preposition on it and proceeds to draw a vignette that shows the spatial relationship between two words. For instance, the student could draw a flower "among" some weeds.
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Preposition of Direction
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Prepositions of direction show how people or animals are moving toward or away from some other object. Examples include "up," "to," "toward," "by" and "past." Students can play an old-fashioned playground game, a cross between Red Rover and Hot Potato, to practice this type of preposition. All students stand up, and the game takes place in the gym or hallway if possible. The teacher calls out instructions like "Simon Says walk past the cafeteria" and "Simon Says crawl toward the parking lot."
Prepositions of Time
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Prepositions of time show when things happen in relation to time. Examples include "at," "in," "for" and "from." A variation of a cloze activity is an excellent tactic for practicing prepositions of time. Distribute a piece of writing paper to each student with the prepositions blacked out. A piece by Shel Silverstein or O. Henry would work well. In Silverstein's "Peanut Butter Sandwich," he wrote, "For twenty years of tears and toil—/ They fought that awful peanut-butter sandwich." The word "for" is a preposition of time and would be blackened. Students make educated guesses to fill in the missing prepositions with the word that makes the most sense.
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