1. Pre-Assessment: Get out a blank sheet of paper
Pre-Assessment: Get out a blank sheet of paper. Write down the subject and verb for each sentence.
1) In Caron Avery’s front yard is a statue of a gigantic striped bass.
2) John Avery’s passion, playing the piano, reveals his intense fascination with music.
3) Around the corner from the Woodlawn Roadside Grille rests Beth and Michael Vogel’s beautiful home.
4) No one possesses more gadgets than does Jack Sanford Davis.
5) Fred and Susan Parker lived near Lexington Avenue.
6) Bob Schumann’s gardens cause walkers on Middle Beach Road to stop and stare.

2. Pre-Assessment Key: Subject is underlined and verbs are in parenthesis.
1) In Caron Avery’s front yard (is) a statue of a gigantic striped bass.
2) John Avery’s passion, playing the piano, (reveals) his intense fascination with music.
3) Around the corner from the Woodlawn Roadside Grille (rests) Beth and Michael Vogel’s beautiful home.
4) No one (possesses) more gadgets than does Jack Sanford Davis.
5) Fred and Susan Parker (lived) near Lexington Avenue.
6) Bob Schumann’s gardens (cause) walkers on Middle Beach Road to stop and stare.

3. Identifying Complete Sentences
Today we are going to learn how to identify a complete sentence. Now I know you guys know this. You probably learned this in elementary school, but I know sometimes we forget these requirements. Then when we get into high school, we start to get a little lazy about doing the little things that make a sentence complete. I wanted to review this so that when we get into punctuation and other things you will have a solid foundation to build upon.
1) Who can tell me what makes up a complete sentence?
Mini Grammar unit

4. Short Response Are the following complete sentences, why or why not?
1. During the trial.
2. John waited.
3. To buy nice jewelry for his greedy girlfriend Gloria.

5. What makes this sentence complete?
Short Response
Are the following complete sentences, why or why not?
1. During the trial.
2. John waited.  Complete Sentence!
3. To buy nice jewelry for his greedy girlfriend Gloria
What makes this sentence complete?
What makes this sentence complete?
The sentence has a subject (John) and a verb (waited), and it expresses a complete thought.
Yes… some sentences can be very short, with only two or three words expressing a complete thought. // We can understand the idea completely with just those two words, so again, its independent – an independent clause.
Sentences 1 and 2 are fragments

6. 1st Requirement in a Complete Sentence
A complete sentence has five requirements:
1. Capitalization
John waited for the bus all morning.
Now who can tell me what the first requirement is in a complete sentence?
The first word of a complete sentence must start with a capital letter. Even if a sentence has all the other requirements (and we’ll get to those in a minute) it still will not be a complete sentence without a capital letter at the very beginning. I still see this problem still coming up in some of the essays I receive. This is an easy way to lose points on an essay for convention errors.
What are some other things that we need to capitalize? Wamego High School, this is a formal noun that is an actual title. Names, months, days, etc.

7. 2nd Requirement in a complete sentence
2. Subject: The subject of a complete sentence is who or what the sentence is about. The subject performs the action, if there is any, in a sentence.
John waited for the bus all morning.
What is the second requirement in a complete sentence?
Traditionally, although not always, the subject is the Noun or Pronoun closest to the beginning of the sentence.
What is the subject of this sentence? = John
The subject is always a noun or pronoun, its what or who the sentence is about

8. Examples of sentence fragments or incomplete sentences
Went to the store.
Drove very quickly.
Fell under the tree.
If we DO NOT have a subject, we will have a sentence fragment, which we’ll get into later on in this mini unit. Notice that these are all missing subjects.
Even the shortest sentence “Go!” has a subject that is understood, but the imperative loses its impact if the person were to include the subject as in “You go!”

9. 3rd Requirement in a Complete Sentence
3. Verb: A verb is an action. Every sentence needs something doing something.
John waited for the bus all morning.
What is the 3rd requirement in a complete sentence? = verb
He swam. = This is a complete sentence. Someone doing something. Its kind of a lame sentence, its short, but a sentence nonetheless.
Mr. O is. = Doesn’t really look like a sentence, cause we want it to say more. Another shorts sentence, but contains a subject (Mr. O) and a verb (is)… it basically means that I exist.
We can also think of a sentence containing a subject and verb as a main clause, sometimes called an independent clause.

10. 4th Requirement in a Complete
4. Punctuation: A complete sentence is not complete without end of sentence punctuation, which can be one of the following:
1) Period (.)
2) Question Mark (?)
3) Exclamation Point (!)
What is the fourth requirement? = Punctuation (also referred to as terminal punctuation)
What are the three main ways we can end a sentence with punctuation? Period / question mark / exclamation point

11. 5th Requirement in a Complete Sentence
5. Make Sense
Although John waited for the bus all morning.
What is the last and final requirement?
We can have all of the other requirements, but they don’t mean anything if sentence doesn’t make sense.
The wall is smiling at me. =
So, why is it important to write complete sentences? = Earning grades, expressing ideas properly, communicating clearly

12. Complete Sentences
Wishing he’d brought his umbrella and dreaming of his nice warm bed, John waited for the bus all morning in the rain last Tuesday because his car was in the shop.
As your sentences grow more complicated, it gets harder to spot and stay focused on the basic elements of a complete sentence, but if you look carefully at this example, you’ll see that the main thought is still that John waited – one main subject and one main vert. No matter how long or short the other sentences are, none of them can stand alone and make sense.
Being able to find the main subject, the main verb, and the complete thought is the first trick to learn for identifying complete sentences or fragments and run ons (which are incomplete sentences)