Parallel Structure: Keeping a List in the Same Grammatical Form
A 45-minute grammar lesson on sentences that pass every other grammar check and still sound wrong, because the items in a list don't share the same grammatical form.
Grammar
Subject
Grades 6-8
Grade Level
45 minutes
Duration
Parallel Structure
Topic
On this page: Materials · Warm-Up · Direct Instruction · Guided Practice · Independent Practice · Assessment · Closure · Related Resources
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Define parallel structure and explain why a mismatched series sounds wrong
- Identify the grammatical form of each item in a series
- Revise a sentence so every item in a series shares the same form
- Explain why correlative conjunctions require parallel structure
- Revise a piece of writing to fix a parallel structure error
Materials
- Parallel Structure Worksheet — one copy per student
- Parallelism in a Series Worksheet and Correlative Conjunctions Worksheet, for extension
- A set of sentence cards, half parallel and half mismatched
- One or two genuinely awkward real-world examples of broken parallel structure, for direct instruction
Vocabulary
- Parallel structure — using the same grammatical form for every item in a series
- Series — a list of three or more items joined in one sentence
- Gerund — the -ing form of a verb used as a noun, such as running
- Infinitive — the to form of a verb, such as to run
- Correlative conjunctions — paired connecting words such as both…and or either…or
Preparation
Find or write one or two genuinely awkward broken-parallel-structure sentences for direct instruction — the more the mismatch sticks out when read aloud, the more the class remembers the test.
Write the sentence cards in advance, roughly half already parallel and half mismatched, so guided practice has a real mix to sort rather than an obvious pattern.
Decide your own working fix for each mismatched card before class, since more than one fix is usually grammatically correct and it helps to have your own version ready.
Warm-Up
4 minutes. Put this sentence on the board: My hobbies are running, to swim, and biking. Read it aloud and ask what sounds off.
Students will usually say it "sounds wrong" without being able to say why — there’s no fragment, no run-on, no spelling error, no agreement mistake.
Say plainly where the lesson is going: this sentence has exactly one problem, and it isn’t any of the errors already studied — not a fragment, not a run-on, not an agreement mistake. Parallel structure is its own grammar rule, and the problem is that the three items in the list don’t match each other in form. Today’s lesson is a test that catches it every time.
Direct Instruction
13 minutes. Give the class one test and make it the anchor for the whole lesson: list out each item in the series separately, and check whether they all use the same grammatical form.
Walk the warm-up sentence through the test: running (gerund), to swim (infinitive), biking (gerund). Two match, one doesn’t — that’s the whole problem. Fix it by matching all three to the same form: running, swimming, and biking, or to run, to swim, and to bike. Either fix works, as long as all three items agree.
Show a second example with a different form: The coach told us to run faster, jump higher, and that we should never give up. Run the test — run faster and jump higher are both commands, but "that we should never give up" is a whole clause, not a matching command. Fix: run faster, jump higher, and never give up.
Introduce correlative conjunctions — paired words like "both… and," "either…or," and "not only…but also." Show why these pairs REQUIRE parallel structure: She not only finished her homework but also cleaning her room. Whatever follows "not only" has to match whatever follows "but also" — finished (verb) doesn’t match cleaning (gerund). Fix: not only finished her homework but also cleaned her room.
Name the actual rule directly: a series is not just a list of related ideas — it’s a list that has to LOOK the same grammatically, or the sentence trips the reader up even when every individual word is correct.
Guided Practice
13 minutes. Pairs sort the mixed sentence cards into parallel and mismatched, running the isolate-each-item test on every card rather than going by feel.
For every mismatched card, pairs rewrite it so every item in the series shares the same form, choosing whichever form the first item already used.
Circulate with one question: what form is each item in this series, and do they all match?
Pairs then start the Parallel Structure worksheet together.
Independent Practice
10 minutes. Students complete the Parallel Structure worksheet.
Add one revision item: given a short paragraph containing one parallel structure error, find it, name the mismatched item, and rewrite the sentence so every item in the series matches.
Assessment
2 minutes. Exit ticket, two items. Fix this sentence: The recipe says to chop the onions, dicing the peppers, and season with salt. Then: explain in your own words the test for checking whether a series is parallel.
The second item is the one that discriminates. The first can be fixed by pattern-matching to practiced examples; the second requires the student to state the actual test, which is the real point of the lesson.
Closure
3 minutes. Go back to the warm-up sentence one final time and have the class state the isolate-each-item test in their own words. Close on the rule: every item in a series has to match the others in form, or the sentence sounds wrong even when nothing else about it is broken.
Differentiation and Accommodations
- Extra support: work with series of exactly three items using only gerunds or only infinitives for today, and save the correlative-conjunction pairs for a second lesson. Reliably spotting a mismatched series is a real result on its own.
- Extension: the parallelism in a series worksheet and correlative conjunctions worksheet each go deeper into one half of today’s lesson.
- Common difficulty: a student who hears that something sounds wrong but fixes the wrong item, or fixes only one item instead of matching all of them. Have them list every item in the series on its own line before touching anything — seeing them stacked up makes the mismatch visible.
- Watch for: a student who assumes any long list must be broken. A series can be long and still perfectly parallel, as long as every item shares the same form — length is not the test, form is.
Extension Activities
Active and Passive Voice pairs well here as a second sentence-construction-choice lesson — different questions, but both about deciding how a sentence is built rather than only whether it’s technically legal.
Hunt for broken parallel structure in real writing — a menu, a set of instructions, an advertisement — and fix the examples as a class. Real errors, found rather than invented, show the mistake is common outside the classroom too.
Have students revise one paragraph of their own recent writing, checking every list or series against the isolate-each-item test. Applying the test to their own work is the genuine transfer test.
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