Phrases can either be dependent or independent, and students can play a game to help them see how they go together. To create a sentence, two independent phrases can be combined with a semicolon or a coordinating conjunction. Dependent phrases must be combined with independent phrases. Create cards with sample phrases on them --- both dependent and independent. Give each student a card and ask him to identify whether he has a dependent or independent phrase and find everyone else in the room who also his type of phrase.
As students get used to pairing and being able to identify whether a phrase is dependent or independent, have them pair up with a partner and combine their phrases on their cards from the previous activity with members from another group with a coordinating conjunction. A coordinating conjunction, also called FANBOY, is "for," "and," "nor," "but," "or," "yet" and "so." Create cards for each of the FANBOYs. Two students from the independent phrase group can combine and make a sentence, such as, "I enjoy making murals, so my art teacher asked me to paint a mural on her wall." The two students used the "so" card to combine their phrases.
Children love to use highlighters, so offer students several colors of highlighters to identify types of phrases. Give students a copy of a piece of literature that they are currently reading in class. Ask them to reread the excerpt individually and use a different color highlighter to identify the types of clauses they can find. For instance, the pink highlighter can show adverb clauses and the blue highlighter can show adjective clauses. To help students, tell them how many of each type of clause is in the piece.
Read Write Think is an activity that uses online tools to create an outline from content. When students are listening to a lecture or reading new content, they can use the tool to create an outline. The tool helps them learn how to write in outline form, and all they need to do is write phrases on the paper. Once students have completed the previous activities and they understand how to write phrases, they can work to putting phrases, both dependent and independent, into outline form to help them study new content.