Sophisticated Sentences Check us out at our new

Sophisticated Sentences Check us out at our new Teachers Pay Teachers Store. My Sophisticated Sentence routine teaches my students important skills from two of the writing traits: SENTENCE FLUENCY and CONVENTIONS. I set aside one or two fifteenminute blocks each week, and my students work—at first—in groups, then in partnerships, and only then as individuals. I have come to believe the following three things about teaching grammar, punctuation, and sentence structures: 1. Most of my students need the support and the safety of a small group or partner when learning the basic patterns that help them understand the logic of language. 2. All of my students learn the rules of language better when they are required to create their own correct and original sentences; fixing errors in someone else’s sentences on a worksheet or during a language drill only helps about 1/3 of my students actually learn to apply the rules to their own writing. 3. Laughter goes a long way to help students enjoy grammar and punctuation. On the next two slides you will be introduced to the eleven sentence patterns I teach my students over the first 10 -12 weeks of instruction. I teach these in the four categories they are currently divided into, and we don’t move on until all the students have mastered each pattern and the punctuation marks embedded into the patterns.

Sophisticated Sentences S + P CLAUSE = subject + predicate Coordinating Conjunction patterns S = CLAUSE Subordinating Conjunction patterns S + P SC S + P. . The mailman AND the fireman ate lunch. Carol laughs WHENEVER that song plays. CC S + P CC P . The stray dog entered BUT left soon after. S + P , CC S + P The past repeats itself, YET few people read history carefully. . SC S + P , S + P . BECAUSE that song played, Carol laughed. S , SC S + P , P Carol, AFTER that song played, laughed like a rabid hyena. .

Sophisticated Sentences S + P CLAUSE = subject + predicate Adverbial Conjunction patterns S + P ; ac , S + P Participle patterns. The drought has lasted longer than it should have; AS A RESULT, the whole city is on water restrictions again this year. S + P ; S , ac , P The drought has lasted longer than it should have; the whole city, AS A RESULT, is on water restrictions again this year. . , -ING phrase . Mr. Harrison stopped the horseplay, FORCING the boys to carefully put down the fragile museum artifact. -ING phrase S + P = CLAUSE , S + P . FORCING the boys to put down the fragile museum artifact, Mr. Harrison stopped the horseplay. S , -ING phrase , P . Mr. Harrison, FORCING the boys to put down the fragile museum artifact, stopped the horseplay.

Sophisticated Sentences We spend three to four weeks trying to master each set of sentence patterns. After creating basic sentences that match these patterns, we do sentence drills with groups. Coordinating Conjunction patterns S These are the coordinating conjunctions! S + P CC . The mailman AND the fireman ate lunch. S + P CC P . The stray dog entered BUT left soon after. S + P , CC S + P The past repeats itself, YET few people read history carefully. . But Or Yet So For And Nor Be aware: But and for can also be prepositions, and so that is a subordinating conjunction. On the next slide you will find examples of the type of sentence drills they work through.

Sophisticated Sentences Click the space bar three times to see three practice drills my students (in small groups or with partners) would work through in a 10 -15 minute session. Coordinating Conjunction patterns S Partner Challenges: S + P CC . The mailman AND the fireman ate lunch. S + P CC P . The stray dog entered BUT left soon after. S + P , CC S + P The past repeats itself, YET few people read history carefully. . cc Choices: AND or OR Challenge: Use the word trapeze somewhere in your sentence. cc Choices: AND or YET Challenge: Use a color word (like blue or puce) in both predicates. cc Choices: AND or SO or FOR Challenge: Share a fact about a superhero in your sentence. All students in the group record each group sentence, keeping their own copy for later.

Twice a month, my students polish and publish their favorite sentence from their most current list of group/partner sentences on 11” x 17” paper with Sharpies & colored pencils. The best of these are laminated and hung from my ceiling or in the hallways as models.

Twice a month, my students polish and publish their favorite sentence from their most current list of group/partner sentences on 11” x 17” paper with Sharpies & colored pencils. The best of these are laminated and hung from my ceiling or in the hallways as models.

Sophisticated Sentences If you order our entire Sophisticated Sentence Package, you will receive sixteen ready-to -go interactive Power. Point lessons that will teach your students the following: Coordinating Conjunction Patterns • • Introductory lesson (15 -20 minutes) Sentence Challenges #1 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #2 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #3 (10 -15 minutes) Subordinating Conjunction Patterns • • Adverbial Conjunction Patterns • • Introductory lesson (15 -20 minutes) Sentence Challenges #1 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #2 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #3 (10 -15 minutes) Participial Phrase Patterns • • Introductory lesson (15 -20 minutes) Sentence Challenges #1 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #2 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #3 (10 -15 minutes) But wait, there’s more: Once students have learned the eleven sentence patterns, they discover that these compound and complex sentences can be combined to become compound-complex sentence patterns. For example…

Josh combined the following two patterns to create this compound-complex sentence. S CC S + P SC S + P .

Skye combined the following two patterns to create this sentence inspired by Steinbeck. S + P ; ac , S + P SC S + P .

Spoiler alert: Brent combined the following two patterns to sum up the entire plot of The Pearl. SC S + P , CC S + P .

Mimi & Hannah combined the following sentence patterns to create this compound sentence. S + P , CC S + P ; ac , S + P . In addition to learning about conjunctions, commas, semi-colons and periods, my students pick up the following academic vocabulary from the standards. Clause: a unit of grammatical meaning that contains a single subject and a predicate. Some clauses are independent, and others are dependent. Simple sentence: a sentence built from one independent clause. Complex sentence: a sentence having one independent clause as well as one or more dependent clause. Compound sentence: a sentence built from two or more independent clauses and having no dependent clauses. Compound-complex sentence: a sentence having more than one main clauses as well as one or more dependent clauses.

Sophisticated Sentences If you order our entire Sophisticated Sentence Package, you will ACTUALLY receive twenty -eight ready-to-go interactive Power. Point lessons that will amount to over SEVEN hours of guided instructional time and challenges for your students. Coordinating Conjunction Patterns • • Introductory lesson (15 -20 minutes) Sentence Challenges #1 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #2 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #3 (10 -15 minutes) Subordinating Conjunction Patterns • • Adverbial Conjunction Patterns • • Introductory lesson (15 -20 minutes) Sentence Challenges #1 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #2 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #3 (10 -15 minutes) Participial Phrase Patterns • • Introductory lesson (15 -20 minutes) Sentence Challenges #1 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #2 (10 -15 minutes) Sentence Challenges #3 (10 -15 minutes) Complex, Compound & Complex-Compound Sentence Challenges • 12 additional Power. Points with sentence challenges that require students to combine the original 11 patterns from the introductory lessons into well-crafted complex and compound sentences. (10 -15 minutes per Power. Point session)

Sophisticated Sentences Observed Benefits of these Lessons/Sentence Challenges for my own Students: 1. My students don’t groan when I say we are doing grammar and learning punctuation; they think creating their own sentences that fit the patterns is “fun. ” 2. Because we learn and practice with fellow students, most of my students “get it” better and faster; they explain the grammar to each other apparently better than I do. 3. On our “Community of Editors” day during our writing workshop, I have too many students volunteer to be comma and grammar checkers; before establishing this routine, I would always have too many spelling, period, capitalization and apostrophe checkers and almost no comma and grammar checkers. 4. Correct use of conjunctions and their required punctuation has begun showing up in my students’ writers notebooks during our Sacred Writing Time. 5. When I correct my students’ final drafts before they go into their writing portfolios, I find almost no run-on sentences and almost no comma splices. If you’re interested in purchasing these materials when I finalize them, email me, or if you “follow” me at Teachers Pay Teachers, you’ll receive an email from