Possessive determiners (his/her) in English

Unit Overview
His bike or her bike? Whose bike is it?

Focus: Third person singular possessive determiners, his and her

Aim: To help students become aware of the difference between the English and French agreement rules for possessive determiners. In English, his and her agree with the natural gender of the possessor. In French,
son and sa agree with the grammatical gender of the entity possessed.

Example:

Bill gave his mother a present.
Bill a donné un cadeau à sa mère.

Mary saw her brother at school.
Mary a vu son frère à l’école.

Rule of thumb: Ask yourself Whose is it? If it belongs to a man or boy, use his. If it belongs to a woman or girl, use her.


Major his/her activities to be completed in one 60-minute lesson:

  1. Possessive determiner grammar auction. Time: approximately 25 minutes
  2. His/her- How do you decide? Time: approximately 25 minutes, including the completion of one cloze
    activity
  3. Cartoon page: Cartoon 1 (Gum); Cartoon 2 (Make-up)
  4. Cartoon passage (Cereal)

Mini-lessons for his/her, 15-20 minutes each, to be completed in class or for homework. (Note that mini-lesson 3 must be done in-class.)

  1. Cartoon passages (two cloze texts: Halloween & Grilled Cheese)
  2. Cartoon passages (two cloze texts: Snowsuit & Sand)
  3. Family tree info-gap: Student A, Student B
  4. Poem transformation: Band-Aids by Shel Silverstein. Optional: Last night I dreamed of chickens by Jack Prelutsky

Lesson plan (pdf)

Mini-lessons 1-2: lesson plan (pdf) & student materials (pdf)

Mini-lesson 3: lesson plan (pdf) & student materials (pdf)

Mini-lesson 4: lesson plan (pdf) & student materials (pdf)