Writing – Sentence Structure

Sentence structure Skill focus: The production of grammatically correct, structurally sound and meaningful sentences.

What’s a sentence? Here are three sentences: He smiles. Autumn leaves twirled gently to the ground. The local school will open an indoor basketball court in November.

Length does not determine what is and is not a sentence. Regardless of how long or short a group of words is, it needs two parts to be a sentence: a subject and a predicate. The subject tells us who or what. The predicate tells us what about it.

These two parts connect to form a basic sentence Who or what? What about it? Hesmiles. Autumn leaves twirl gently to the ground. The local schoolwill open an indoor basketball court in November.

Ok your turn...write Write 3 of your own sentences in the table below. The first one has been done for you. Who or what What about it The silly boy dropped the expensive vase

We can enhance our sentences by adding adjectives : Write these into your book ____ magazines are stacked under the _________ table. The ___________ seminar explains how to start a ____________ business. Meditation helps create a ___________ mind and _________ body.

Sentence Structure Miranda held the book. Verb - held Subject/person – Miranda (Who or what held?) Object/Noun – the book

Your turn Find the noun, subject and verb below... Write these into your book...circle the noun, underline the subject and put a squiggly line under the verb Jenny rode her bike home Jeff watched TV all night Chris went to the movies

Incorrect sentences - one long and rambling: I woke up to find that I had grown long beautiful hair and was wearing a fantastic new ball gown and the crown had changed to be made of silver and when I ran to look out of the window I was looking at a completely new place and there were horses and glittering streams and birds all over the place and I was extremely happy about all that but I did not know anyone there at all. Re –write this sentence by breaking it up into a number of smaller sentences…in your book.

Incorrect sentences - two Fragment Because I went there. In the mountains. During winter. Verb errors The crystal broken. (this could be fixed by the insertion of was broken, is broken, will be, can’t be, broke etc) He must of gone to the shop. (must have)

Your turn... Write these correctly in your book There was cold and wet Children had laughing and running In summer.

Simple and compound sentences I found the plates. They looked awful. (simple) They were chipped and had lots of cracks. (compound) I picked them up but I could not hold them. (compound) The compound examples given here use linking words (and and but) to join two separate ideas. The two sections of the compound sentence can be written in the other order without changing the position of the linking word or the meaning of the clauses. They had lots of cracks and were chipped. I could not hold them but I picked them up.

Compound sentences - examples I ran to the window because I needed to escape. Because I needed to escape, I ran to the window. Ok now your turn… The hat,_________________, lay on the floor.

Activity - Building compound sentences Create 3 separate compound sentences using the simple sentence groups below: 1.The dog smelled disgusting. He was covered in mud and slime. 2.The magician is very old. He knows many tricks. 3. We landed with a bang. We fell out onto the ground. We were not hurt.

Activity – possible answers The dog smelled disgusting because he was covered in mud and slime. The magician who knows many tricks is very old. Although we landed with a bang and fell onto the ground, we were not hurt.

Your turn...create compound sentences Look at your recent writing and create a compound sentence from two of your shorter sentences

Your turn…write these sentences starters as compound sentences…in your book I said that I was… I thought that I might go… I decided that I would take... I wondered whether it was going…

Adding adjectives...write these in your book _________ magazines are stacked under the ________table. The ____________ seminar explains how to start a ___________ business. Meditation helps create a __________ mind and ____________ body.

Add an adverb... Try ‘ly’ at the end Airline employees worked ________ to reschedule our flights. We ___________ loaded the van with furniture. The driver realized __________ that he had missed the exit.