English Grade 8
9:30am 10:30am MWF (1 Hour)
Room: RL 203
I. Objectives
2.1 Materials
Slides Copies of The New York
Handouts Times
Worksheets
2.2 References
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/nyregion/at-new-york-city-parks-fishing-line-and-
hooks-pose-another-danger-to-birds.html
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/scrutinizing-stand-ins-working-with-nouns-
and-pronouns/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
http://www.esldesk.com/vocabulary/pronouns
III. Methodology
A. Motivation
Present a dialogue in the class:
Ted: Hi Jim. Is Jim going to the show?
Jim: No Ted. Jim is not going to the show.
Ted: Then, where is Jim going?
Jim: Jim is not going to tell Ted where Jim is going.
B. Lesson Proper
Provided with The New York Times article, the class will read through it to identify
nouns and discuss the use of pronouns.
Ensure that students understand that pronouns are words that take the place of
nouns and that they can be masculine or feminine, singular or plural. Note, too, that a pronoun
also has to match the noun it is replacing in gender and number. A few more examples could
be added to the lists on the board so that the class has full examples of masculine, feminine and
neuter in singular and plural.
Explain that there is one other way pronouns vary that nouns dont usually need to: by
case. While pronouns have three cases in English nominative (she), objective (her) and
possessive (hers) nouns change form only for the possessive (Nancy is both nominative
and objective, whereas the possessive is Nancys).
Pronouns
Person Personal Possessive
Possessive Reflexive/Intensive
Gender/Number Subject Object Adjective
1st Person I Me My Mine Myself
2nd Person You You Your Yours Yourself
3rd Person male He Him His His Himself
3rd Person female She Her Her Hers Herself
3rd Person neutral It It Its Its Itself
1st Person plural We Us Our Ours Ourselves
2nd Person - plural You You Your Yours Yourselves
3rd Person - plural They Them Their Theirs Themselves
Finally, students return to the sentences they wrote and try to label and categorize each
pronoun, then swap with a partner to check for accuracy. Or, hold a quick competition to see
who can write a coherent sentence with the most diverse array of pronouns.
C. Enrichment Activity
Tell students to pair up, and designate half the pairs pronouns and the other half
nouns. The task of the pronoun pairs is to underline all nouns in the Times article they read
and replace them with their correct, corresponding pronouns.
Eventually, the pronoun pairs will rewrite the entire Times article, replacing every
pronoun with its corresponding noun. Meanwhile, the noun pairs will do the opposite:
underline every pronoun in the article and replace it with the noun that it stands for.
When pairs are finished, have the pronoun pairs read their version aloud (have each pair
read one paragraph in turn until the article ends), followed by the noun pairs. Then discuss how
each version sounds with all the changes.
Ask: Where did the substitutions work, and where did they render sentences awkward or
even nonsensical? What choices did the revision require?
D. Evaluation
IV. Assignment
Students are given worksheets to provide the correct pronoun/noun with given a
noun/pronoun.