Lesson Plan: Teaching Appositives

Appositives rename the noun that comes before the appositve. For example, John, a carpenter, goes to work each day during the week. In this example, a carpenter renames John, so the carpenter is considered an appositive. Teaching appositives seems easy, but students need to be told about 8,326 times before they remember it.

Students often think the wrong word is the appositive. Using the example cited above, many students may state that John is the appositive, but the appositive must come after the word that it renames. You will have to emphasize this point many times or they will forget this important rule. Teaching appositives requires clarification; otherwise, students will run into problems on standardized tests.

• Create a worksheet that has twenty or more sentences with appositives.
• Have students circle the appositive and draw a line back to the noun that it renames. Doing so helps students understand that appositives can only appear after that word that it renames.
• Remind students if they do not have a line drawn pointing back to their left, they have done something wrong and must be punished (Ok, you don't have to punish them).
• This assignment should be an easy A+, but some student will not follow directions and fail the assignment, usually with a zero.

Give students a daily grade for completing the assignment listed above. I like to take this concept a step farther. I do not test on appositives immediately, but I go ahead and teach a verbals unit: participles, gerunds, and infinitives. Once I have finished teaching verbals, I then assess both the verbals unit as well as appositives.

Throughout the semester, I return to this concept and incorporate a few questions concerning appositives on review packets as a refresher. For many students, this is their first time studying appositives, so I do not want them to forget how they function in sentences.