ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCES

STRETCH THE SENTENCE: EXTEND A NOUN OR VERB

Planning Points

Approximate Time Needed: 30-45 minutes for steps 1-4; 15 minutes for step 5. (The steps could be divided into several 10-15 minute mini lessons.)

Lesson Objectives:

Students will learn how to add details to a basic statement to achieve sentence variety. Students will revise four sentences in their own writing to show sentence variety.

Materials Needed:

• Transparencies of sample sentences (Step 1, Step 2, Step 3)
• Blank transparencies
• Overhead markers
  

Description

Step 1

Every sentence, no matter how long, can be reduced to a basic or core statement. Put the following examples on an overhead and ask students to identify the core of each sentence.

Underline the core in one color marker and the extension in another.

• Bells rang, filling the air with their clanging, startling pigeons into flight, bringing people into the streets to hear the news.
• Love, as everyone knows except those who happen to be afflicted with it, is blind.
• After trying unsuccessfully to divert Mr. Dunwiddy into a discussion of the football game, the class took a quiz.

Ask students to explain how the basic statement was extended in each example. Use their wording to label each sentence above. For example, one student might say, "Words were added at the end, in the middle, or at the beginning." Guide students to see that in each example a noun or a verb was extended.

Step 2

Let students practice the three types of sentences they have identified using the following basic statements. When you start with the first sentence, for example, ask which type of sentence revision was used. Write the type of revision, the sentence, and then mark its basic statement in one color and its extension in another. Then ask if someone used another type of revision. Again, write the revision type, the sentence, and mark it. If no one used the second type of revision, have the class create one and mark it together.

Step 3

1. Before asking students to vary their own sentences, show the basic statements above again without their revisions. Underline the key words in each statement where it would be easiest to add details, make extensions. Probably students will note the nouns. If they do not offer the verbs as a suggestion, ask them how they would extend grabbed in sentence 1. How might Sally grab the cat?" In sentence 2, how might Fred eat his supper? Guide students to see that several adverbs could be stacked together to extend the verb.

2. Review with students the two ways you've learned to vary sentences.

Step 4

Ask students to pick four sentences in their current writing. Transfer these to a new sheet of notebook paper. Tell them to underline the part or parts of each sentence they want to extend and then write their revisions.

Step 5

The following class period, ask for volunteers. Hand them each an overhead transparency and marker. Tell them to write one of their revised sentences. Have the student place it on the overhead and see if the class can identify where the extensions were added. Push them to identify the addition as a verb or noun extension.

Additional Notes:

*Adapted from Payne, Lucile. The Lively Art of Writing. Newton, Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon, 1982.

Teacher's Notes

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