Punctuation Activities for Middle School

Build knowledge by being sure a student understands, and play games to make learning punctuation fun.

Teaching middle schoolers punctuation sets them up to become better writers and communicators in personal and business settings. The longer a student is able to spend on his punctuation skills, the more likely he is to continue successful punctuation skills later in his life. Build a knowledge of punctuation by playing games and doing activities to make learning punctuation enjoyable.

Punctuation Jeopardy for Punctuation Review

Play Punctuation Jeopardy to review punctuation marks.

Write several questions with punctuation related answers. Use different headings, much like the Jeopardy television show, to use punctuation in different ways. Some topic headings could include Fill In the Blanks, End Marks, Quotation Marks, To Apostrophe or Not to Apostrophe, and Miscellaneous. Have Fill In the Blanks -- such as "The ___ is a mark that indicates a tone of excitement in a written sentence" -- that will allow students to insert the correct punctuation mark that pertains to a definition of its use. End Marks would include sentences missing their end punctuation. Quotation Marks would allow students to read a short pair of phrases or a short passage to determine if one quotation or two quotations marks were required in the passage's particular context. To Apostrophe or Not to Apostrophe would include the many words that portray the difference between possessive and conjunctive apostrophes, or if an apostrophe was not necessary. Miscellaneous can include any of the above and whatever else the game-maker can think of relating to punctuation. This game of Punctuation Jeopardy will help students to review their punctuation marks in an attention-grabbing manner.

Sentence and Punctuation Scrambles

Sentence Scrambles can help students learn to put punctuation where it belongs.

Using sites like education.com to find ideas and print or make up sentence scrambles to help students to put punctuation in the right places. Write out a sentence with correct structure and punctuation, then take it apart and scramble the words. In a separate box next to the scrambled words, write out the punctuation marks that need to be inserted into the sentences and how many of each mark is going to be used in that particular sentence. To make the exercise harder, write just the number of punctuation marks missing from the sentence without labeling which marks are missing.

Write a Script

Write and peer-edit class scripts for small skits.

Divide the class into small groups and hold each group responsible for writing a one to two-page script of any event their group decides on together. The group with the most correctly placed punctuation marks wins a prize. Have each group trade with another group and allow peer-editing of the in-class scripts. This will allow students a second opportunity to see and read punctuation and look for rules and errors.

Play More Team Games

Play games to keep the educational experience entertaining.

Have the students divide into teams and play a game to make the learning process more entertaining. One by one, give a member of the team a sentence missing a punctuation mark, a word needing a conjunctive apostrophe, or some other form of punctuation teaser. Give a point to the teammate who answers his question correctly. Keep track of points and have a prize ready for the winning team. The team with the most points wins.

References

• "Punctuation Marks, The Guide to Grammar and Writing"; Capital Community College Foundation; 2010
• "Sentence Scramble"; Education.com; 2011