Well, hello there! I know. It’s been WAAAYYYYYY too long since I last blogged. But here I am. 
Anyway, I wanted to stop in really quickly this evening to talk about something that our kids have so much trouble with: complete sentences.
*Moment of silence for all the teachers out there who have tons of kids who still can’t figure out what makes a sentence.*
This concept now falls under 4.11Di: Complete simple and compound sentences with subject-verb agreement and avoidance of splices, run-ons, and fragments.
Do you know what this USED to be? 4.20B.
Whaaaaaat? Yep. That is exactly how 4.20B was tested. So will it probably look the same this year? I would guess so. Especially since they don’t want to put a whole lot of effort into changing it now when it will be changing for sure in a couple of years.
Don’t believe me? Just take a look at released tests and see how that TEK was tested in the past. It was testing comma splices, run-ons, and fragments. It always has. And our kids have always struggled with that TEK.
There are big companies out there who have put together TEK correlation charts from old and new TEKS, and one in particular says that there is no correlation with 4.20B…that it was cut from the TEKS. While it is not worded the same anymore, what is being tested is absolutely still the same. And I hope that teachers aren’t ignoring this because if it’s on there like it used to be, it’s a huge chunk of that test!
If you’re like me and need a little something more to help kids understand how to attack those types of questions better, you can check out my Complete Subject and Predicate Unit that has everything you need to show your students a solid strategy to use when attacking those types of questions. You can take a look at it here.
That’s it for today. Basically a PSA that the TEK that has caused so much trouble in the past has actually not disappeared like some would lead you to believe. If you need help with it, send me a message! I’m always glad to help in any way that I can. 
The post Complete Sentences, Fragments, Runons, and Comma Splices appeared first on Texas Teaching Fanatic.