Lesson Plan Title : The Long and the Short of It

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

Overview and Purpose : Students excel at using slang while chatting on computers or texting on cell phones. This lesson challenges students to think about the words they use every day and decide if they are a shortened form of another word.

Objective: The student will be able to correctly identify common words that have been shortened.

Resources:

Overhead projector

Transparencies

Transparency markers

Activities:

Brainstorm with the class about words that have been shortened. These could include gasoline, submarine, and automobile. Divide the class into pairs and have them work together to come up with other words that have been shortened. Ask them to choose one of the words and to make a transparency showing the complete word, the shortened word, a picture of the object, and how it would be used in a sentence.

Have each group show their transparency to the class. Use these words for part of your spelling list.

Closure:

An introduction to this lesson could be to have students write down several of the words or abbreviations they use while chatting and texting. Talk about the meaning of these words and how they are used.