A statement, a question, a command, and a shout are only useful if you know when to use each one. This lesson is about making your own sentences work harder.
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Students will practice two revising strategies from Houghton Mifflin's Writing Good Sentences: varying the types of sentences used in a paragraph, and correcting stringy sentences that connect too many ideas with the word and.
A paragraph built entirely from one sentence type, usually declarative, can feel flat even when every sentence is correct. Mixing in a question, a command, or an exclamation gives the writing energy. Separately, a stringy sentence packs too many ideas together with and, which makes it hard to follow. The fix is to split it into two or more shorter sentences, each carrying one idea.
Kolten may try to fix a stringy sentence by just deleting the word and, without adding the period and capital letter the new sentence needs. Remind him that splitting a sentence means punctuating both halves as complete sentences, not just removing a conjunction.
Have him read a stringy sentence out loud without taking a breath. Wherever he runs out of air is usually where the sentence should have been split. For varying sentence types, read a paragraph of all-declarative sentences out loud together, then read the same paragraph with a question or command mixed in, and ask him which one sounds more interesting.
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Before You Start
The words this lesson uses. Tap a card to see what it means, then come back to them whenever a question uses one.
Part One
Questions about the story you just read. Pick your answer straight off, or press Find it in the story if you would rather hunt for the sentence first.
Part Two
The word cards are at the top of this page. Look back at them as often as you need, then answer.