Stage 3

Seven Super Sentences

Teaching Notes

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

Stage 3 – Seven Super Sentences Page Slide Focus

1.

Seven Super Sentences provides students with seven simple strategies that they can use to construct effective, simple, compound and complex sentences. Seven Super Sentence Match Changing Sentences in Seven Ways Classroom Display

2.

To establish an understanding of what your students believe a sentence to be, brainstorm ideas on what a sentence is. Many children think that a sentence is a series of words that begin with a capital and end with a full stop. A sentence is actually a complete idea. Every sentence needs a verb and a subject.

3.

Before students can successfully and intentionally create compound and complex sentences, they must first have a solid understanding of the simple sentence as a simple sentence is the basis of an independent clause. Ask students to begin by identifying the verb. To identify the subject, we ask who or what did the verb. In the first example, the verb is cried. Who or what cried – I cried, therefore I is the subject. In the sentence – Whisk the cream, the verb is whisk. Let’s try to identify the subject by asking who or what whisks the cream? The subject in this case is the reader. As ‘whisk the cream’ is an instruction that you would find in a procedure, it is assumed that you, the reader, are going to follow these instructions, thus making you the subject of the command.

4.

There are some verbs which do not represent actions, speaking, thoughts or feelings. Their role is to link the two pieces of information – these are called relating or linking verbs. These verbs are often found in information reports and descriptions where the emphasis is on expressing information about the subject.

5.

Students practice the skill of identifying the verb and the subject by completing this activity independently in their work books.

6.

In these examples, either the verb, the subject or both have been left out. Ask students to identify what is missing from each phrase.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

7.

Students rehearse identifying what is missing from each sentence by completing the activity independently in their work books.

8.

Students demonstrate their understanding of what is missing in each sentence by correcting and thus completing the partial sentences. This activity would be a good opportunity to assess the students’ understanding of the concept.

9.

One way of improving sentence structure is by changing weak words for stronger words. List of action verbs

10.

In this series of lessons we are going to explore how changing the verb can impact on the sentence. Students often rely on common verbs including said, went and ran. Let’s explore how we can add further information including character motive by selecting our verbs with intent.

11.

Verbs have varying degrees of meaning (modality). Using the inclined arrow, work as a class to order the verbs from weakest to strongest. Trying the words on for size, examine how the verb can impact on the motive of the character. For example, Sam braved the roller coaster suggests to the reader that Sam was not particularly confident when it came to riding roller coasters and yet he has challenged his own fear by riding it.

12.

Students continue to develop their understanding of the power of verbs by placing synonyms for said on the word incline. How does the verb choice impact on the emotion behind Mrs. McGinty’s command? How is it said worksheet

13.

We want students to be able to think of synonyms for themselves so in this activity we want the students to brainstorm their own set of words to put on the incline. You may like to encourage the use of a thesaurus as a resource that writers often use. Once again, examine the impact that verb choice has on the reader.

14.

Students work independently to replace the verbs in the given sentences. You can extend this activity by asking students to explain how their verb choice is likely to impact on the reader.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

15.

To become stronger writers, students need to be able to evaluate and refine their own work. So far the students have been given examples to manipulate. This page has been left blank so students can reflect upon and refine sentences from their own work. Word cline arrow

16.

The second strategy is ‘add in a word’. While this sentence suggests adding in a single word, you are not limited to adding only one word.

17.

We are going to explore how adding adjectives can enhance the image we create in the reader’s mind. Senses adjectives

18.

By Stage 3, we want students to be using a wide variety of adjective types, preferably in the correct order. Using the grid, students can write adjectives for each category and then select the best adjectives for the sentence. To minimise excessively long descriptions, suggest to students that they should not use any more than 3 adjectives at a time.

19.

When listing two or more adjectives, how do we know when to use a comma? Simply, if two adjectives can be separated with the word and, then we use a comma. For example, we can say - the old and rusty roller coaster – therefore we use a comma between old and rusty. However, we cannot say the wooden and dining table so in this example, there is no comma between the adjectives wooden and dining. To demonstrate this concept to the students, the words old and rusty can be dragged apart to create a space to try the word and on for size. In the top corner of the page, the red and has been infinitely cloned so you can pull it down and slot it between the words old and rusty.

20.

The word kangaroo can be moved so that the adjective giant and red can be brought into the sentence. Ask students which order they think the two adjectives belong in? Do we need to use a comma to separate the adjectives giant and red?

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

21.

This time we are trying three adjectives on for size. In which order do they belong and where do we need to use commas?

22.

Students work independently to add the given adjectives to the appropriate part of the sentence. The adjectives need to be put in the correct order with the correct use of commas.

23.

This sentence provides opportunities to explore where adjectives could be added. We can describe the penguin, life and water. Playing with the idea of 3 adjectives only, experiment with where they could go. For example, The mighty penguin is highly adapted for life in the cold Arctic waters. We have used a maximum of three adjectives in the sentence. This is purely a personal preference but we find it is a good way to help students be selective about where and how they use adjectives.

24.

This slide provides a further opportunity to guide students through the process of spending their three adjectives wisely before they are asked to work independently.

25.

Students demonstrate their understanding of the order and punctuation that accompanies adjectives by adding words to the given sentences.

26.

Using examples from their own writing, students show how they improved a sentence by adding adjectives.

27.

In addition to adding adjectives, we can also add conjunctions to create compound sentences.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

28.

By Stage 3, students should be familiar with conjunctions and compound sentences. We want to raise the bar by extending the types of conjunctions that students are using to including more complex words. Demonstrate how we can join these two independent sentences by adding a conjunction or a semi-colon. The sentences have been typed so that they can be easily separated from each other to make room to write a conjunction. Connectives worksheet

29.

What makes a compound sentence? Two independent clauses joined by a semi-colon or a conjunction.

30.

Guide students through the process of joining these two independent clauses to create a compound sentence.

31.

Students practice joining sentences using both conjunctions and semi-colons.

32.

Using their examples from their own writing, students continue to practice using conjunctions and semi-colons to create compound sentences.

33.

While students have been rehearsing joining two sentences to create a compound sentence, we want to ensure that students can create their own compound sentence from scratch. Our experiences have shown that students often write complex sentences when asked to create a compound sentence. This activity requires students to write two independent clauses before joining them together. This strategy helps students so understand that each sentence must be an independent clause, thus helping to correct the complex sentence error.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

34.

Students often write run on sentences that go on and on. We’ve found it most effective to advise our students to use one conjunction only. This helps minimise the chances of students writing a run on sentence.

35.

In this example, we can see how the author of this text has used many conjunctions resulting in a long winded, boring sentence. Ask students to identify and count the conjunctions. Is this an effective sentence? Ask students to edit the sentence using conjunctions, semi-colons and simple sentences. For example, Watching TV doesn’t help you with school or anything to do with home. It can make you really lazy. Sitting on the lounge can make you hungry; then you will want to eat.

36.

For the third strategy, drop in a chunk, we are going to learn how we can use adjectival phrases and clauses to add additional information about the noun.

37.

Nouns and pronouns can be modified not only by adjectives, but also by adjectival phrases and clauses. While adjectives go before the noun, adjectival phrases and clauses go after the noun. Adjectival phrases worksheet

38.

While adjectival phrases and clauses do not have to be cuddled by commas, they can be. The commas change how we read the sentence and where the importance is placed. For example, in the sentence Sam, who had a fear of heights, went on the roller coaster, the adjectival clause who had a fear of heights is additional information about Sam. It is not critical information to the sentence, but rather is further information describing Sam. When the commas are removed Sam who had a fear of heights went on the roller coast, Sam’s fear of heights is of equal importance to the rest of the information in the sentence. As this is quite a mature concept to understand, it is at your discretion whether you teach your students to use commas or not.

39.

Students work independently to underline the adverbial phrase or clause in each sentence. Identifying the type of adjectival phrase worksheet

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

40.

In Stage 2 we teach students to write adjectival phrases and clauses that indicated which noun e.g. Sam, my next door neighbour ; a description of the noun e.g. Sam, in his green pants and purple shirt; and information that tells us why e.g. Sam, who was celebrating his birthday. In Stage 3, we introduce students to three further categories of information: with what e.g. Sam, with his tousled hair and shiny eyes; like what e.g. Sam, like a wild wind tearing through the town; and define e.g. Sam, a claustrophobic. This page provides an opportunity to model these three new categories of information that can be used to modify the noun - Sam.

41.

This page provides further opportunities for you as the teacher to guide students through the process of adding adverbial phrases to the noun. Remember that adjectival phrases go after the noun.

42.

This page provides yet further opportunities for you as the teacher to guide students through the process of adding adjectival phrases to the noun.

43.

Students independently modify the noun in each sentence by dropping in an adjectival phrase or clause.

44.

Students look for examples in their own writing that they can improve by adding adjectival phrases and clauses.

Now that we have learnt how we can modify the noun, we are going to examine how we can modify the verb by adding an adverbial phrase. Adverbial phrases answer questions including where, when, how, how often and why.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

Adverbial phrases can go at the end of the sentence.

Adverbial phrases can also go at the beginning of the sentence.

When the adverbial phrase goes at the end, we do not separate it from the sentence with a comma. When the adverbial phrase goes at the beginning, we use a comma to separate it from the rest of the sentence.

In Stage 1, students learnt about when and where adverbial phrases. In Stage 2, students expanded their understanding of adverbial phrases by adding the categories – how often and why. In Stage 3, students learn the new category – how e.g. With a cacophony of screeching, the birds began to squawk. Model how we can create a complex sentence by adding adverbial phrases on the beginning and/or on the end.

Guide students through the process of creating complex sentences by adding adverbial phrases to beginning and/or the end.

Students work independently modifying the sentences to include adverbial phrases and clauses.

Students continue to practice the skill of modifying the sentence to include adverbial phrases and clauses.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

Students practice moving the adverbial phrase from the beginning of the sentence to the end.

Students practice moving the adverbial phrase from the end of the sentence to the beginning.

Students practice moving the adverbial phrase from the end of the sentence to the beginning and from the beginning of the sentence to the end.

Students select sentences from their own writing to improve by adding adverbial phrases.

In Stage 1, students learnt about onomatopoeia and in Stage 2, they learnt about similes. In Stage 3, we build upon this understanding of imagery by exploring metaphors.

Metaphor is when you use two nouns and compare or contrast them to one another. Unlike simile, you don't use "like" or "as" in the comparison.

To create a metaphor we begin by describing characteristics of the object. For example, the roller coaster is red and black, long and thin, it scares people and it rattles as it moves. To create a metaphor, we ask “What else has these characteristics?” A snake also shares these same characteristics so we can say that the roller coaster is a snake.

Guide the students through the process of creating a metaphor for the sun.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011

Students practice the skill of creating a metaphor. Metaphors worksheet

Students work independently to create metaphors to insert into the given sentences.

Using examples taken from their own writing, students enhance sentences by including metaphors.

Alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words and/or phrases.

In Stage 1, students learnt to use alliteration for character names. In Stage 2, students extended alliteration to include the verb, adjectives and nouns. In Stage 3, we add adverbs.

Demonstrate how we can use the grid to formulate a sentence that is rich in alliteration. After guiding the students through the process, students can use these skills to write their own sentences. Alliteration worksheet

Working independently, students rewrite the sentences to include alliteration.

Students look for opportunities in their own writing to include alliteration.

© i-Learn Education and Training 2011