Grammar Practice Activities for High School
By high school, hopefully your students have a good grasp on English grammar. They ideally should write coherent paragraphs and identify important grammar concepts. Students who do not possess these skills will struggle when they take college preparatory exams or high school exit exams. If your students need focused grammar practice, incorporate engaging grammar activities for your high school students to grasp important grammar concepts.
Other People Are Reading
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Find That Part of Speech
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To review the parts of speech and show how relevant proper words are in society, bring old magazines to class for students the find the part of speech you want. Find at least one old magazine per student by asking adults for donations or having students bring ones from home. Label the parts of speech onto large cards and pick one to place on the board. Tell your students to stand or raise their hand as quickly as they can as soon as they find that part of speech in their magazine articles or advertisements. You may have them use a highlighter to mark the word. After everybody as found a word, go around the classroom asking them to tell you the word. They may need to clarify the context to show the part of speech. Gradually add in more difficult grammar to find such as appositives, gerunds or infinitives.
Descriptive Practice
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To practice the importance of using vivid adjectives and adverbs, have your high school students use a guessing game as a grammar practice activity. Give a student a simple subject-verb sentence such as, "the dog barked." At the front of the room, the student should say five adjectives to make the class guess the subject. He should then give five adverbs to make the class guess the verb. On the board behind the student, write down the most vivid combinations to make the most interesting sentence.
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Mixed-Up Clauses
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To reinforce the role of independent and dependent clauses in a sentence, divide your class into two groups for a mixed-up clause grammar activity. Assign one group to make up an independent clause and the second group to come up with a dependent clause. Remind your students of the list of subordinating conjunctions that start dependent clauses. Alternate which groups gives their clause first. For instance, the independent clause group could say, "The boy drove to the mall." Then then the dependent clause group could give their previously made clause, "Because the dog was wet." The next time have the dependent clause group go first. Prepare for some absurd sentences. In addition, have one student act as a scribe and write the sentences on the board to show proper placement and punctuation.
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- Photo Credit reading of magazines image by Podfoto from Fotolia.com
