Syntax Surgery

Students study advanced grammar structures by cutting apart and re-assembling sentences. Students complete many language transformation tasks as they study and apply new and known grammar rules.This should be done once a week for 45 minutes in duration for all levels. Primary and Secondary teachers you can break it up into two components: On day one 20 minutes and day two will be 25 minutes or vice versa.

Language Objective:

TSW organize their sentence using all the given words, in syntactical sequence, to form a complete sentence in the declarative, negative, and interrogative forms.

Part 1: Grammar Dissection (Day 1)

  1. Display the grammar headings on the whiteboard.
  2. Teacher demonstration sentence is cut up and out of order on the board. Read the words with the students and explain any unknown vocabulary words.
  3. With or without the student’s assistance categorize the words under the correct part of speech. Always be sure to complete categories. Nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.
  4. Use the think out loud strategy to construct the sentence in front of the students. Be sure to discuss the relationships between the parts of speech as well as the punctuation.
  5. Once the demonstration sentence is assembled, pass out the same sentence to each student with the words mixed up.

Part Two: Hands On (Day 1)

  1. Students will cut apart the words.
  2. Students assemble the sentence into its correct order.
  3. Teacher reviews the various parts of speech by asking:
  • Which word is the ______?
  • What is its function in the sentence?
  • How do you know its______?
  1. Part two is completed when the students have completed a minimum of five shuffles. Two of the five should include a negative and an interrogative sentence.
  • Pre-emergent and emergent - Practice word order and one and one
  • Basic and Intermediate – shrink or lengthen sentence, change beginning of sentence, vary the syntax pattern, switch tenses
  1. Students can write sentences based on the syntax lesson. Sentences can be put into a small bag or envelope when done.

Part 3: Eyes on (Day 2)

  1. Write or place the words to the sentence out of order and have students write the sentence in its original form.
  2. Have students write the original sentence in the negative and interrogative form.

Syntax Surgery Template

Language Objective:

We will put a mixed up sentence in order using the grammar wall.

Sentence Structure:

  • Noun + verb
  • Noun + verb + adjective
  • Noun + verb + adjective + when

Original sentence
Remove nouns
Remove verbs
Key phrase
Make it an interrogative sentence. (question)
Make it a negative sentence.

The following link shows videos of both Pre-Emergent/Emergent as well as Basic/Intermediate (K-6 Part I and Part II and 7-12) students and instructors using this strategy