Preparation

Dry erase markers

Resources where students can find examples (brochure, magazine, novel,
handbook, textbook, etc.)
Guided notes
Document camera
What I Was Thinking

As I was reading through student writing and the writing of my peers, I

realized that many people do not include commas after introductory elements.
While sometimes they are unnecessary, often they provide clarity and allow the
sentence to flow better together. I have seen many students and peers introduce
sentences with dependent words or phrases, then fail to follow that part of a
sentence with a comma.
I knew in previous mini lessons that people in our class had presented with
PowerPoints. I did not want to do that because, for the most part, they were not
very interactive. I think that guided notes are a good way to get the students
involved in the learning and have more of a discussion feel. However, I do not think
that just taking notes will solidify the ideas in their minds. I want them to be able to
pick out sentences from real sources that use commas after introductory elements. I
will bring in many sources such as novels, magazines, brochures, textbooks, etc. so
that the students can see that these sentence structures are everywhere and
happen more than they probably realize.
Script
Good morning class. Today we are going to be talking about the use of
commas after introductory elements. Were going to be taking guided notes, which
means that I will be leading a discussion and you will be recording key points in the
blanks of the notes sheet that you have. Does anybody have any ideas as to what
introductory elements might be? Right, they come at the beginning of the sentence.
So, an introductory element can be a word, phrase, or clause that comes at the
beginning of a sentence. Those are your first three blanks: word, phrase, or clause.
Now the next line we are going to give examples of single words that might be
introductory elements. Can anybody think of any examples? Good, I like all of those
that you came up with. Hopefully you recorded some of the words that you and your
classmates came up with. If not, here are a few words that I had listed as examples:
next, yet, however, and eventually. Make sure that were all recording examples
while I get volunteers to share what might be examples of phrases that are
introductory. Good, I like how I saw a lot more people taking notes as I had
volunteers share this time. Some of my examples were: after all this time, once
upon a time, for example, and on the other hand. Does anybody have any examples
of clauses that they think might be introductory? This one is a bit trickier. Thank you
for the participation. That one was hard, but you did a great job. I had two

examples: As the man was walking into the store and Grabbing her coat with
one hand and her hat with the other
Now that we know what introductory elements are, we can start to talk about
why we need to use a comma after them. Id like you all to take 30 seconds to turn
and talk with a partner to see if you can come up with a reason that we use
commas after introductory elements. Alright, I heard some good things as I was
walking around the room. Can anybody share with me what you and your partner
were talking about? Why is it important that we use commas after introductory
elements? Right, they help us understand how the sentence parts are separated.
Write that in your first blank there. Someone else give me another reason. Yes, they
also help us to understand the meaning of the sentence. Nice job. Can anybody give
me the last reason? Thats right, they help us to correctly read the sentence aloud.
Take 10 seconds and make sure that you and your neighbor have the same three
points written down for why we need to use commas after introductory elements.
Okay, so now we know what introductory elements are and we know why we
need to use a comma afterwards. Can I get a volunteer to read this next sentence
on your notes out loud? Just the first part please. Take a second and think about how
that sounded. Now can I have that same person read the second sentence? What
did you notice about the two sentences? Exactly, the first sentence was unclear. Did
you have a hard time reading the first one? It was difficult to understand what the
message was trying to convey and there were no clear pauses, so the lack of a
comma made it difficult to read the sentence aloud. Once the comma was added in,
the sentence parts were separated and easily identifiable, we were better able to
understand the meaning of the sentence, and it was much easier to read the
sentence aloud.
Weve talked about dependent words before in our lesson about sentence
fragments. If we have a dependent word, then it needs to be followed by another
part to the sentence or else the sentence is left incomplete. In this next section of
your notes, I have given you an acronym to help you remember some of these
common dependent words that signal you that you might have to use a comma
after your introductory element, whatever it may be. This acronym is AAAWWUBBIS
(or a-woo-bus). You can see here what each letter in the acronym stands for. This
will help you in the next section of the notes, as well as the activity that we will be
doing in just a little bit.
I have given you examples of sentences that properly use commas after
introductory elements. In this first one, from the book The Star Fisher, I have circled
the signal word for you that came from my AAAWWUBBIS acronym. I want you to
underline the whole phrase leading up to the comma so that you can see how the
sentence is separated into two parts. In the next example, which I came up with, I
want you to do the same, but this time I didnt circle anything for you. Turn to your
partner for 10 seconds to make sure that you both circled and underlined the same
things in those first two lines. Now I want you all to create your own sentences
following this same structure that weve been looking at. I have included a visual on
the bottom for you so that you can easily see what sentence structure you are

mimicking. It will be an opener (or introductory element) in the beginning, followed

by a comma, and then the rest of the sentence. Take about a minute to come up
with your own sentence. Use the AAAWWUBBIS words as a guide, but you are not
limited to those words alone. Remember, those are just some common words. There
are many words that can start an introductory element off. Okay I hope youre all
wrapping up your sentences. I want you to turn and talk with a partner about the
sentence that you wrote. Try reading it to your partner without the comma at first,
then add the comma in. Talk about the differences together and the changes that
you see in your sentences by adding that comma in. Take about a minute. Good job.
I liked the participation from all the partners.
Now you will be getting into groups and finding examples of these types of
sentences in real-world sources. Before you start, let me show you what you will be
doing. I will be giving each group a source. I brought in a brochure, novel, magazine,
handbook, textbook, and other types of sources you might use in real life. For each
source, I have given you specific page numbers to look between, since some of
these sources are harder to navigate than others. With your group members, look
through these pages to see if you can find an example that follows this same type of
structure that we have been talking about. Then I want one person from your group
to come up to the board and write the sentence that you found. Make sure to
include what source you found it from and the page that it came from. When youre
all done, one person from each group should read the sentence out loud and tell the
class how easy or hard it was to find that sentence.
I hope you were all able to see how these sentences are all around and they
probably appear in more places than you think. You may have even used
introductory elements in your own writing and naturally followed them with a
comma. Maybe you didnt follow them with a comma in the past but now you know
why you should. Can someone recap for me the three reasons we talked about as to
why we use commas after introductory elements? Thats exactly right. Thank you all
for your hard work today.

Commas After
Introductory Elements
What is an introductory element?

An introductory element can be a _____________, _____________, or

_____________ that comes at the beginning of a sentence.
o ______________

Ex:

o ______________

Ex:

o ______________

Ex:

Why do we use commas after introductory elements?

Commas after introductory phrases help the reader to

o __________________________________________________________________
o __________________________________________________________________
o __________________________________________________________________

Consider this sentence: Until the spring course lists will not be published.

vs.
AAAWWUBBIS
Until the spring, course lists will not be
published.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas_intro
.htm

After

Although (even though and though)

As

When (whenever)

While

Until

Because

Before

If

Since
Examples

When I saw the woman, she reminded me of a bird. Though her hair was
white with age, she walked with small, quick, lively steps.
Laurence Yep, The Star Fisher

After all this time, I still remember the look on her face when I said those
words.

______________________________________________________________________________

Opener ,
sentence .

Page Numbers For Sources

Aetna Student Health brochure: Pages 22-26
Write Like This: Pages 3-5
Job Search Handbook: Pages 36-40
Assessment Data Article: Pages 584-586
Evolution: Pages 32-35
Skipping Stones: Pages 16-17
Girls Life: Pages 58-60
The Truth About Forever: Pages 6-8