Rewriting a Sentence With Different Coordinating Conjunctions

The first unit in our writing program was always teaching the coordinating conjunctions.

I always felt so goofy teaching this to 6th graders. I mean… do they really not know the difference between “and” & “but”?

My friend Mike mentioned that he has students start sentences the same way, but change the conjunction as a way to see how each conjunction affects the flow of a sentence. I ran with this idea.

Structuring The Lesson

I model each conjunction using my own sentence starter:

“Pluto is a dwarf planet…”

I had seven conjunctions, so I broke the lesson into three parts:

• and, yet
• for, so, but
• or, nor

This allowed me to model my own sentences and let kids practice with a small number of conjunctions before moving onto the next set. I picked each set to highlight the differences – you might choose different sets.

• Pluto is a dwarf planet, and…
• Pluto is a dwarf planet, yet…
• Pluto is a dwarf planet, for…
• Pluto is a dwarf planet, so…
• Pluto is a dwarf planet, but…
• Pluto is a dwarf planet, or…
• Pluto is not a dwarf planet, nor…

And so on. Then, I gave students some “optional options” as their starting points:

• The Blue Whale is the world’s largest mammal.
• Rainforests are home to more than half of the world’s species.
• The moon is the earth’s only natural satellite.

Shoutout to Mike for recommending this as a way to write within science and/or social studies AND practice conjunctions.