Gerund Roles
About This Worksheet
This Grade 7 Language Arts worksheet helps students recognize gerunds and determine how they function as nouns. A gerund ends in -ing but names an activity, idea, or action instead of serving as the main verb. Students examine gerunds acting as subjects, direct objects, objects of prepositions, and predicate nominatives. For example, in “Running improves her stamina,” running is the subject because it names the activity doing the sentence’s main job.
Learning Goals
The main goal is to help students distinguish gerunds from ordinary action verbs ending in -ing. Students should already understand common noun functions and basic verb phrases. This activity moves them toward identifying how one word form can act differently depending on its place in the sentence. It supports CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.7.1, which focuses on grammar, verbals, and the functions of phrases and words.
Student Tasks
On this worksheet, students will read five sentences and underline the gerund in each one. They will then label the gerund as a subject, direct object, object of a preposition, or predicate nominative. A short explanation question asks why a gerund is different from a verb even though it ends in -ing. The final section asks students to write two original sentences using gerunds in different noun roles.
Common Challenges
Some students may underline every word ending in -ing without checking whether it acts as a noun. Others may confuse a gerund with a present participle that describes a noun or forms part of a verb phrase. The noun role can also be difficult to identify once the gerund is found. Encourage students to replace the gerund with a regular noun and see whether the sentence structure still works.
Teaching Suggestions
A teacher can compare “Running is fun” with “She is running” to show the difference between a gerund and a verb phrase. Students can then substitute a noun such as exercise for running to confirm the noun role. At home, a parent can ask the child to name favorite activities and use them as subjects or objects in sentences. This makes gerunds feel like familiar ideas rather than an abstract grammar rule.
Worksheet Features
The worksheet includes five guided examples, one short explanation, and two original writing tasks. It covers several noun functions instead of treating all gerunds as the same. The repeated pattern of finding and labeling helps students build confidence before creating their own sentences. This page works well for verbal instruction, noun review, independent practice, or assessment.