Analyzing author style using sentence combining

Learning outcomes

Students will:

• analyze an author’s style.
• practice sentence combining.
• verbalize at least one strategy to combine sentences.
• make observations about how the author structured the sentences in her opening paragraph.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

• A copy of “Beach People, Mountain People” by Suzanne Britt. This essay was original published during the 1970’s in the Raleigh News & Observer and can be found in her collection of essays entitled Show and Tell.
• Overhead transparency of model sentences for each sentence-combining strategy.
• Overhead transparency of Model Sentences
• Overhead transparency of Sentence Combining
• Overhead transparency of the first paragraph of “Beach People, Mountain People.”
• Blank overhead transparencies and markers
• Paper and pencil

Technology resources

Overhead Projector.

Activities

Modeling/Mini-lesson:

Using the transparency of Model Sentences, demonstrate each of the following strategies for combining sentences:

1. Take out repeated phrases.
2. “Stack” adjectives together.
3. Put sentences together using a conjunction.
4. Use an introductory phrase.
5. Don’t always start the sentence with the subject and then verb.

For example: “Kim went to the mall. She met Angie. Angie is her best friend. They have been best friends since kindergarten. Then they went to the video store. Then they went to see a movie.”

Strategy 1: “Kim met her best friend Angie at the mall. The girls, who have been best friends since kindergarten, went to the video store and then to see a movie.”

Strategy 1, 2, 3: “After Kim met Angie at the mall, the two girls, who have been best friends since kindergarten, went to the video store and then to a movie.”

Strategy 4, 5:“After meeting at the mall, Kim and Angie, who have been best friends since kindergarten, went to the video store and then to a movie.”

Guided Practice

1. Put a transparency of Sentence Combining on the overhead.
2. There are three sections of sentences on the transparency. Students are asked to combine the sentences in each section in any way they wish. (Students could do this individually or in groups).
3. Ask different groups or individuals to write their new sentences on an overhead to share with the class.
4. Ask the presenter to count how many sentences were in the original passage compared to his or her writing.
5. Show the class the original version of the sentences written by the author. Have the students count the number of sentences she used.
6. Ask students to explain one of the strategies they used or Britt used to combine sentences (take out repeated phrases and “stack” adjectives together; put sentences together using a conjunction, use an introductory phrase; don’t always start the sentence with the subject and then verb, etc).
7. Ask students to explain why Britt’s last sentence in paragraph one is effective.

Follow-up Activities:

• Ask students to read the essay, looking for interesting ways the author varies her sentence structure. Ask them to pick one sentence or section they really liked and copy it onto a transparency. Use these transparencies over the next several days to discover ways to vary sentences. Make a running list of these ways somewhere in the classroom.
• In the next writing the students complete, ask them to incorporate at least two different ways to vary sentences. They should highlight their examples and label their strategy.

Assessment

• The student is able to reduce the number of kernel sentences during the opening exercise.
• The student is able to explain at least one way he or she reduced the number of sentences.
• The student can locate one or more sentences from Britt’s writing that shows interesting sentence structure.
• The student can articulate why the sentence structure was interesting?
• The student can successfully incorporate two strategies to achieve sentence variety.

By Vickie Smith