What it is. Parallel structure: items in a series are built the same way.
Why our test works. Faulty parallelism is invisible to the writer and immediately audible to the reader, which is why it survives every proofread a child does. Reducing it to a mechanical check — look at the first word of each item — makes it findable without needing to name participles or gerunds, which Grade 6 grammar has not yet done.
Leans on. Grades 1-5 built and combined sentences. This is about their internal shape.
Watch for. Reading the list aloud finds it faster than any rule. Have them hear it before they analyze it.
Practice one sentence move: parallel structure in a list. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher writes a plain sentence, then makes the move once, saying what changed and why the The class reads Writing Book 6, p.59 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher writes a plain sentence, then makes the move once, saying what changed and why the new version is better. For example: “We measured the rainfall, the temperature was recorded, and checking the soil.” becomes “We measured the rainfall, recorded the temperature, and checked the soil.”. Both stay on the board. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class makes the same move on two sentences together, saying the change aloud before writing it. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 6 to page 59 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: In your notebook: make this move on four sentences, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read one sentence before and after the move. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Every item in a list takes the shape of the first.
Reading the list aloud finds it faster than any rule. Have them hear it before they analyze it.