Pronouns: Replacing a Noun Without Losing the Reader
A 45-minute grammar lesson on pronouns and the nouns they stand for. Students replace repeated nouns, match a pronoun to its antecedent, and fix sentences that are grammatically correct but leave the reader unsure who is meant.
Grammar
Subject
Grades 3-5
Grade Level
45 minutes
Duration
Pronouns
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:
- Explain that a pronoun stands in for a noun, and name the noun it stands for
- Identify subject, object, and possessive pronouns in a sentence
- Replace repeated nouns with pronouns without changing the meaning
- Choose a pronoun that agrees with its antecedent in number
- Rewrite a sentence whose pronoun could point to more than one noun
Standards
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.3.1.A — Explain the function of pronouns in general and their function in particular sentences
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.3.1.F — Ensure subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.1.A — Use relative pronouns
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.5.1 — Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar
Materials
- Pronouns Worksheet — one copy per student
- Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Worksheet — for the second half or the next session
- A short paragraph written on the board that repeats one name five times
- Two colors of marker or chalk
Vocabulary
- Pronoun — a word used in place of a noun — he, she, it, they, him, her, them
- Antecedent — the noun a pronoun stands for, almost always mentioned earlier
- Subject pronoun — a pronoun that does the action — I, you, he, she, it, we, they
- Object pronoun — a pronoun that receives the action — me, you, him, her, it, us, them
- Possessive pronoun — a pronoun that shows ownership — my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs
- Agreement — matching a pronoun to its antecedent in number, so one noun gets a singular pronoun and more than one gets a plural
Preparation
Write this paragraph on the board before class, exactly as it is — the repetition is the point, so resist smoothing it out:
- Devon packed Devon’s backpack. Devon could not find Devon’s library book, so Devon looked under Devon’s bed.
Leave room underneath. You will rewrite it live with the class, and then, later in the lesson, deliberately over-correct it — which is where the real teaching happens.
Warm-Up
5 minutes. Ask a student to read the board paragraph aloud, exactly as written. Then ask what is wrong with it.
Students will say it sounds strange, repetitive, or annoying long before they say anything about grammar. That is the right answer and the right starting point: pronouns exist to solve a problem readers can hear, not to satisfy a rule.
Take one rewrite from the class and write it underneath in a second color, so the original stays visible next to it all lesson.
Direct Instruction
12 minutes. Underline every pronoun in the rewritten version and draw an arrow from each one back to Devon. Name what the arrow means: every pronoun points at a noun, and that noun is called its antecedent.
Sort the pronouns the class used into three columns as they come up, giving the label after the examples rather than before:
- Subject pronouns do the action — He looked under the bed.
- Object pronouns receive it — The teacher helped him.
- Possessive pronouns show ownership — He could not find his book.
Now teach agreement with the cleanest test there is: count. One noun takes a singular pronoun, more than one takes a plural. Do The firefighters parked ___ truck together and let the class hear why their is right and his is not.
Then the move this lesson is actually built on. Write on the board:
- Maya told Sara that she had won.
Ask who won. Take a show of hands for Maya, then for Sara, and let the class see itself split. Every rule so far is satisfied — she is a subject pronoun, it is singular, it matches a singular antecedent — and the sentence still fails, because the reader cannot tell which noun the arrow points to.
Name it plainly: a pronoun needs one obvious antecedent, not just a grammatically possible one. Fix it together, and notice that the fix is to put a noun back in: Maya told Sara that Sara had won.
Return to the Devon paragraph and over-correct it on purpose — replace every single noun with a pronoun and read the result aloud. The class will hear it collapse. Pronouns are a tool for avoiding repetition, and using every one you can is its own mistake.
Guided Practice
12 minutes. Partners work through Section A of the Pronouns Worksheet together, replacing the noun in each phrase with a pronoun. Require one extra step for each item: say the antecedent out loud before writing the pronoun.
- That step is the whole assessment in miniature. A student who can name the antecedent has understood the relationship; a student who cannot is pattern-matching on the shape of the sentence and will be fine here and lost in their own writing.
- Circulate and ask the arrow question — which noun does this point at? — rather than whether the answer is right.
- Then put two sentences on the board and have pairs decide whether each pronoun has one obvious antecedent: The dog chased the cat until it got tired. and Jordan gave Ben his coat. Both are ambiguous. Both are grammatically correct.
Independent Practice
10 minutes. Students finish the Pronouns Worksheet independently, including Section B, where a bracketed noun has to be replaced with the right pronoun.
Add one written item, because no sheet on the site assesses the lesson’s spine: write a two-sentence story about two people of the same gender, using a pronoun in the second sentence, and make sure a reader can tell exactly who it means. Then underline the pronoun and circle its antecedent.
Timing note. If the worksheet fills the ten minutes, run the written item as homework or open the next session with it rather than compressing both. It is the item that discriminates, so it should not be the one that gets rushed.
Assessment
4 minutes. Exit ticket, three items. (1) Replace the repeated noun: Rosa fed Rosa’s cat. (2) Choose and explain: Each student brought ___ own lunch. (his or her / their) (3) The one that discriminates: Ellie asked Priya if she could come. Who is ‘she’? Rewrite the sentence so there is no doubt.
Items 1 and 2 test the rules. Only item 3 tests whether a student can see a sentence that obeys every rule and still fails a reader, which is what the lesson taught.
Closure
2 minutes. Point at the two versions of the Devon paragraph still on the board and ask why the second one is better but the over-corrected third one is worse. Listen for an answer about the reader being able to tell who is meant — not a restatement of the definition.
Differentiation and Accommodations
- Extra support: stay with one antecedent at a time. Use sentences about a single person or a single object, so the arrow has only one place to land, and add a second character only once the first is secure. Physically pointing at the noun while reading the pronoun aloud helps more than any written exercise at this stage.
- Extension: the Possessive Pronouns Worksheet takes on the pair students get wrong most often — my against mine, her against hers — and is the natural next sheet once reference is secure.
- Watch for its and it’s. This is the possessive that breaks the pattern: every other possessive pronoun takes no apostrophe, and students who have just learned that possessives use one will write it’s tail. Teach it as the exception it is, and test it by expanding to it is.
- Watch for the singular they. Each student brought their own lunch is now accepted in most style guides and is what students hear everywhere. Say so rather than marking it wrong, then teach what the cited worksheet asks for, which is the traditional agreement rule — students should know both and know which one a given assignment expects.
Extension Activities
Pronoun-antecedent agreement is the natural next lesson, and the linked worksheet moves straight into it, including the sentences where the pronoun and its antecedent disagree and have to be repaired. After that, Subject-Verb Agreement is the useful pairing: it asks a matching question about two words inside one sentence, where this lesson asked one about a word and a noun in a different sentence entirely.
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