At a Glance:

Grades:5
Subject:ELA (English Language Arts)
Topic:Perfect Verb Tenses
Lesson Length:30 - 45 mins

Standards / Framework:

What will students learn in this activity?

Students will learn about perfect verb tenses and create a comic to demonstrate their understanding of perfect verb tenses.

What should students know before this activity?

This is an introductory lesson for perfect verb tenses. Students will recognize that perfect verb tenses indicate when an action was completed, is completed, or will be completed.

How can teachers introduce this lesson?

  • Read and discuss the sample comic.
    • What is taking place?
    • When is the action taking place?
    • What words are used to convey the completion of the task?
  • Discuss that the character completed an action, or perfected the action in each panel. Have students notice that the words have, has, or had are used to communicate this completion of the action. 
  • Have students brainstorm other examples of perfect verb tenses using have, has, or had.

What will students do?

  • Using the sample comic as a guide, have students create a three-panel comic showing examples of perfect verb tenses.

How can teachers wrap up the lesson?

  • Give students an opportunity to share their comics with the class. 
  • Discuss how students can use perfect verb tenses in their writing.

How can teachers differentiate this activity?

  • Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
  • Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.
  • Allow students to use the voiceover feature to read their comics aloud.
  • Pair visual cues with the verb phrases to show time progression.
  • Explicitly teach present, past, future perfect tense structure, e.g., subject+ has/have+ past participle + object = present perfect tense.

Related Resources:

  • Comic to print or display