The Possesive's Nightmare (or is it Possesives'?)

I.                     Intro

a.      The fake "Spelling Test"

                                                              i.      dog

                                                            ii.      *dogs'

                                                          iii.      **dogs

                                                           iv.      dog's

                                                             v.      cat

                                                           vi.      cats

                                                         vii.      cat's

                                                       viii.      cats'

                                                           ix.      ***bus

                                                             x.      bus's

                                                           xi.      buses

                                                         xii.      buses'

                                                       xiii.      ****foot

                                                       xiv.      *****foot's

                                                         xv.      feet

                                                       xvi.      feet's

As you give the answers to each word, organize them on the board, so they fit into the following grid.  This gives a great opportunity to teach the given rules.  It also sets up the creation of their "algorithm" PowerPoint.

*Hopefully a student will ask you to use it in a sentence.  Teacher responds, "Why?" in an effort to get students thinking about possessive verses plural.  If no student asks, then preface the correcting of dogs' with "I'll bet that over 90% of the class missed this one."

**From here on out, you comment as the students request that you use it in a sentence.

***At this point, you are introducing a new rule where the singular noun naturally ends in "s."

****At this point, you are introducing a new rule where the plural noun will not end in "s."

*****When students ask for you to use it in a sentence, you will point out that you don't need to use it in a sentence because there is no such word as "foots."

II.                   Practice 1

a.      MS Word doc

III.                  Practice 2

a.      MS Word doc

IV.               Evaluate http://205.118.2.9/~welch/TeachingTools/Writing/Possessives/Test.htm

a.      Online

b.      analyze data

V.                 Remediate and Extend

a.      Extend--PowerPoint algorithm