Stronger Sentences 

Lessons for Week 3: Passive and Active Sentences
Tired of Microsoft Word underlining your sentences with that green squiggly line?  "Passive Sentence" may be the most common grammar warning that student writers see.  This week we'll learn what a passive sentence looks like and how we can convert passive sentences into strong, active sentences. 
Examples and Exercises
Examples demonstrate how moving the subject to the front of the sentence forces one to use better verbs.  Sixteen sentences are done by students as an exercise. 

Some ideas are taken from Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999.  Pgs 9-11

Assignment for Week 3: Passive and Active Sentences
Students will write a final short story, 2-3-pages.  Find inspiration by clicking on the Gallery above right.  After writing their drafts, students should:
1 Hunt and kill all instances of Got, Lots, and Stuff
2 Hunt all instances of weak verbs and transform them into strong verbs. 
3 Hunt all instances of warning words such as really, totally, and very; change the word that follows to something stronger. 

Going Beyond the Basic Sentence: Using Phrases   
During the next two or three weeks, we will be focusing on sentence structure. 
English teachers have recently changed the way that they teach grammar.  In the "old way", the students began with learning types of words and often focused on learning vocabulary (nouns, adverbs, etc.).  Then the students would work their way up through simple sentences to complex-compound sentences. 

In the "new way" of teaching grammar, teachers start with the complete, complex sentences that students already speak and begin breaking them down.  The new way focuses less on vocabulary.  The old way was abandoned after research showed that it was not effective in changing students' writing.   

Week 4:
Introduction to Phrases

Lesson 1: "Basic Chunking"
Without learning any vocabulary, this lesson raises students' awareness that sentences are made up of various "chunks" and that they already are intuitively aware of it. 
Killgallon, Don.  Sentence Composing for Middle School.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1997. 
As Overheads, P 2-4; As paper cut-out puzzles: p 11-14, #s 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and example p 11

Lesson 2: More "Chunking"
Killgallon, Don.  Sentence Composing for Middle School.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1997. 
As Overheads, P 5-7; As paper cut-out puzzles: p 11-14, #s 7, 8, 9, & 10 and example  p 8 

Lesson 3: identifying Comma Splices 
In this lesson, we learn to separate these chunks by placing a comma between them. 
Killgallon, Don.  Sentence Composing for Middle School.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1997.  P 17-19, 18, 20, 24, 27. 

Week 5-6:
Lesson 1: The Participle "-ing" Phrase
Some ideas are taken from Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999.  P 4-6.

Assignment for Week 5:
#1 Adding Participles to a Story
Students will take one of their stories written previously this quarter and identify or add participle phrases. 

Lesson 2: The Appositive
Some ideas are taken from Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999.  P 7-8.

#2 Adding Appositives to a Story
Students will take one of their stories written previously this quarter and identify or add participle phrases.  This can be the same story used for #1. 

Lesson 3: Adjectives Out-of-Order
Some ideas are taken from Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999.  P 9.

Adding Adjectives Out-of-Order to a Story
Students will take one of their stories written previously this quarter and identify or add participle phrases. 

Imitating Sentences: It's Not Plagiarism 

Lessons for Week 7:
Lesson 1: Word Types
We will review word types by imitating the famous poem, "Jabberwocky" (Greenlee)  We will also create a chart of word types

Lesson 2: Imitating Sentence Patterns
This week we will experiment with imitating sentences written by professional writers.  First, we will learn that imitation is not plagiarism*, which is copying content, whereas we will be copying structure, but not content.  Read the ;quote at right and study this PowerPoint presentation of examples**. 

* Examples taken from Noden, Harry R.  Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1999.  P 70.

** Examples taken from Killgallon, Don.  Sentence Composing for Middle School.  Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1997.  P 35. 

"Students of [music] composition and painting deliberately imitate great works of music and art as part of their training, but students of writing often seem afraid of imitation.  Don't worry, it's not plagiarism to write a paragraph "in the style of" Austen or Dickens or Woolf." 

Ursula LeGuin,
Steering the Craft, xiv

Killgallon, Don. Sentence Composing for Middle School. Portsmouth, NH: Hienemann, 1997.

Lessons for the 8th Week

Assignment for 8th Week: Poetry PowerPoint Presentation

Rubric (47k doc )

WARNING: Presentations are due at the beginning of the hour Friday.  There will be no preparation time allowed--NONE! There will be no make-up! 

Lessons for the 9th Week

Assignment for 9th Week: Literary Paper
Writing the Draft:
See instructions on either a web page or a Microsoft Word Document. 

Revising:
The revision of this assignment will be graded on the student's ability to demonstrate what he or she has learned this quarter. 

Vocabulary is the single strongest indicator of whether or not a student will do well in college--even if they enter math or science. 

Writing without modifiers

Personal Survival Words  (Atwell, Lesson #61)
Proofreading for Spelling  (Atwell, Lesson #62)
The Truth about I before E  (Atwell, Lesson #63)