Fragments A fragment is an incomplete sentence usually

Fragments

A fragment is an incomplete sentence, usually one that is missing either a subject or a verb.

The first time. I prepared myself for a picnic kind of like riding a bike for the first time. Not that, being a twelve-year-old boy, I had trouble riding a bike. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t born with picnicking etiquette. Anyway, it was too late. For picnic lessons. And someone had already checked out the last copy of Twelve Steps to Proper Picnicking. I had to wing it. At this point. And just hope she wouldn’t find out.

My grandfather. Sitting in front of the television pretending to be reading the paper instead being fast asleep. Grandma. In the kitchen peeling potatoes and humming some old song everyone was tired of. Merging at the dinner table. And me. Ready to skedaddle at a moment’s notice.

We have gone together for three months. And now I have just decided. To be friends. Even knowing he still wants the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. The ring-on-the-finger thing. The tilldeath-do-us-part thing. He wants me to be his girl. Until he is ninety-six and I’m a young ninety -five.

Activity: Turn the fragments into sentences by re-writing them, adding any necessary words or combining any phrases.

Exit Slip… Now write your own paragraph containing at least three fragments. Make sure they are used for a purpose, for emphasis.