1. Sentence Patterns

2. Interrupter some more…  Pretend the commas are handles and that you can lift the interrupter out with. If what you have left is still a sentence then you’re good. SENT, interrupter, ENCE Her hair, brown and flowing, was held back with a scrunchy. Mr. Talk, our English teacher, says we’re intelligent.

3. Interrupter Pattern  Ex.) We cruise past block after block of humble little houses, white-washed and stucco, built decades ago. This sentence shifts the adjectives, whitewashed and stucco, after the noun causing them to be set off with commas.

4. Interrupter Pattern Cont…  We cruise past block after block of humble little houses built decades ago.  We cruise past block after block of humble little houses whitewashed and stucco built decades ago.  We cruise past block after block of humble little houses, whitewashed and stucco, built decades ago.

5. You try to do the Interrupter…  Our yellow ranch house, 26 Babolink Drive, had a garage and a bathroom shower with sliding glass doors. – She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb  My brick abode, 105 Northampton Ct, came stocked with carpet fit for a funeral home and wallpaper from the 70’s.

6. Serial Pattern  This type of sentence describes three actions that take place in a series. Then somewhere a dog barks, the door of a nearby trailer opens, and light spills onto the gravel driveway.

7. Serial Sentences on the Run  This type of sentence uses same concept as using commas in a list of three things. Ex) I like apples, bananas, and grapes.  With a malicious gleam in his eye, he kicks back the chair, pulls out his shirt tail, and adopts the high-volume grunting and braying tones of a Mississippi Delta Evangelist.

8. Are you serial? Get it? SENTE N, C, and E. Pick up your tennis shoes, your potato chip bag, and your sweaty self off my white rug.

9. Closer Pattern  This sentence starts with an independent clause, which is followed by descriptions that tell about that sentence. All the trailers look the same, slightly ragged around the edges, lined up in neat rows.

10. Close it out, yo!  Use a comma to set off additional information if it’s after an independent clause and the additions modify or describe elements of the clause. All the other kids watched the woman as she moved along the line, her high-heeled shoes sounding like firecrackers going off on the wooden floor. There was a lot of posing going on, a kind of auditioning or something.

11. “Hey, Hey, Hey; Goodbye.” SENTENCE, Sensory Details make great closers. SENTENCE, closer. She slipped away, leaving a trail of silence louder than all of his accusations.

12. ? Page: What it must have…  Fragment w/ purpose.  Two word sentences. Remember powerful verbs.  AAAWWUBBIS’s that are correctly punctuated  Three sentence patterns: Interrupter, Serial, and Closer  GET TO IT; I KNOW THAT YOU CAN DO IT!