Lesson Plan Title : Double Negatives

Age Range: Grade 6 through grade 8 (Middle School Level)

Overview and Purpose : Double negatives are becoming more common in our everyday language. This lesson helps students look for them and correct them.

Objective: The student will be able to recognize a double negative and correct the sentence.

Resources:

Sentences with double negatives written on pieces of paper.

Activities:

Explain to your students that two negatives in a sentence cancel each other out. This makes the sentence the opposite of what the speaker intended. Tell them they are going to play a game to practice understanding the correct meaning of a sentence that contains double negatives.

Have a student take one of the pieces of paper that has an incorrect sentence on it. Explain that he has to act out the correct meaning of the sentence. (For example, if the sentence is 'I don't have no money.' He would act out that he has money.) The class will have to guess what double negative he is acting out. If they guess that he has money, they would be wrong. They will have to guess that he doesn't have no money or none money. The student who guesses correctly can act out the next sentence.

Closure:

This activity could also be done in small groups. The students could work together to create a sentence with a double negative and then act it out for the class. For homework, have students create ten double negative sentences for their classmates to correct the next day.