SAS Curriculum Pathways

The lesson I looked at was called "Unclear Pronoun Reference," launch number 893.

I think this lesson is really important for an English class because this proper pronoun reference is a problem in all grades levels, and is a very critical issue to address in order to improve student writing and help them communicate their ideas more effectively and professionally. I really like how the lesson was set up on the site and how clearly marked the steps were: first students would read about unclear pronoun references and look at how it causes confusion in sentences, then they would research examples of confusing sentences because of unclear pronoun references, and lastly they would respond by collecting examples of sentences with unclear pronoun references and explaining how to correct them to make more sense to readers.

I like this lesson because it has everything the teacher needs right there in one place. I like that there are two websites provided for students to get familiar with correct pronoun usage so that when students are doing their work they have a little bit of variety during the lesson (I know that's not much, but it might keep them more active then if they were just staring at the same site for the whole lesson). I also like that the worksheet needed for assessment is provided. I do think that this lesson doesn't leave too much room for creativity on the part of the teacher. If this lesson is used, it's all laid out for the teacher, which is a definite plus, but there isn't really anything that makes it particularly interesting or exciting for kids. I suppose this is something the teacher would have to do her/himself, which of course is great, but I'm sure there are a lot of teachers who won't bother trying to make the lesson more interesting and will just be glad to find a ready-made lesson that they don't have to do much prep-work for. However, if the teacher using the lesson is willing to put their own spin on it and make it even better, this is a great resource.