One of the punctuation rules my kids have to master this year is how to punctuate introductory prepositional phrases. Because so many of the kids come to me not knowing a preposition from a hole in the ground, I use a variety of strategies to help them recognize the beast.

Many teachers use the device of the airplane and the clouds:

The plane flew _______________________ the clouds.

And many prepositions comfortably fill in that blank:

The plane flew around the clouds.

....beneath the clouds.

...over the clouds.

And so on.

But nothing's perfect in English.

I'm thinking about giving my kids a group of prepositions, such as the one I show below, to try in the airplane model with the purpose of identifying the black sheep prepositions, so to speak.

For instance, out of the following set of prepositions, which would you argue do not fit the model in a way that makes a sensible English sentence?

aboard, about, above, according to, across, across from, after, against, along, alongside, alongside of, along with, amid, among, apart from, around, aside from, at, away from, back of, because of, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but, by, by means of, concerning, considering, despite.

Thanks for taking a quick look. (You might ask yourself, "Does this sentence make sense out of context?")

I see several that work lamely at best, and, in an essay, would cause a lot of confusion.