[Type text] Sentence Composing Activities The First Day by Edward P. Jones Teacher Overview Skill Focus Levels of Thinking Remember Understand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create Close Reading Grammar Composition Mechanics Capitalization Punctuation Phrases Absolute Appositive Gerund Infinitive Participial Prepositional Clauses Dependent/Subordinate Independent Sentences Structure complex compound compound-complex simple Sentence Variety Sentence Beginnings Sentence Combining Types (modes) Descriptive The Process of Composition Editing sentence structure Style/Voice Conscious Manipulation of Sentence Patterns Coordination/Subordination Deliberate Manipulation of Point of View Experimentation with Original Forms and Structures Experimentation with Sentence Variety Imitation of Stylistic Models Use of Various Sentence Openings Materials and Resources The First Day by Edward P. Jones Prepared sentence strips for the unscrambling activity Lesson Introduction This lesson provides practice with the four sentence composing techniques described in Don Killgallon s Sentence Composing for Middle School and Sentence Composing for High School: sentence unscrambling sentence imitating sentence combining sentence expanding Students will unscramble, imitate, decombine, combine, and expand various sentences from the short story The First Day by Edward P. Jones. After completing the activities, students will read the story, during which time they will find the original sentences and compare those sentences with the ones they have created.
Sentence Composing Activities The First Day by Edward P. Jones Sentence Unscrambling 1. Unscramble the following sentence parts to create one logical sentence. Write your sentence in the space provided. to begin my very first day of school to be ashamed she takes my hand in an otherwise unremarkable September morning long before I learned and we set off of my mother down New Jersey Avenue 2. Unscramble the following sentence parts to create one logical sentence. Write your sentence in the space provided. across the street at I Street a timeworn, sadfaced building from my mother s church we enter Seaton Elementary School Mt. Carmel Baptist between New Jersey Avenue and Third Street
Sentence Imitating 3. Write a sentence that imitates the following sentence. Make all of your sentence parts match the parts in the original sentence. Write your sentence in the space provided. I am also wearing yellow socks trimmed with thin lines of black and white around the tops. 4. Write a sentence that imitates the following sentence. Make all of your sentence parts match the parts in the original sentence. Write your sentence in the space provided. My shoes are my greatest joy, black patent-leather miracles, and when one is nicked at the toe later that morning in class, my heart will break. Sentence Decombining 5. Express the content of the following sentence in shorter sentences. Just inside the front door, women out of the advertisements in Ebony are greeting other parents and children. 6. Express the content of the following sentence in shorter sentences. I am wearing a checkeredlike blue and green cotton dress, and scattered about these colors are bits of yellow and white and brown.
Sentence Combining 7. Combine the following list of sentences to create one sentence. Write your sentence in the space provided. My slip is new. My slip is pale green. My underwear is new. The underwear comes in a package of three. The package is made of plastic. The package has a girl on the front. The girl appears to be dancing. 8. Combine the following list of sentences to create one sentence. Write your sentence in the space provided. There is a woman who greets us. The woman has on pearls. The pearls are thick as marbles. The marbles are jumbo. They reach almost to her navel. She acts as if she has known me all my life. She touches my shoulder. She cups her hand. Her hand is under my chin.
Sentence Expanding 9. Complete the following sentence by adding your own words at the place indicated by the slash mark (/). Try to add approximately the number of words in parentheses. Write your sentence in the space provided. When, in answer to her question, my mother tells her we live at 1227 New Jersey Avenue, (/). (13) 10. Complete the following sentence by adding your own words at the place indicated by the slash mark (/). Try to add approximately the number of words in parentheses. Write your sentence in the space provided. My mother has uncharacteristically spent nearly an hour on my hair that morning (/). (9) Additional Activities 11. Unscramble the following sentence; then write a sentence that imitates the unscrambled sentence. Write your sentences in the space provided. with a black and white speckled cover I am carrying a pencil sharpener and a small ten-cent tablet a pencil
12. Combine the following sentence parts into one sentence; then write a sentence that imitates this sentence. Write your sentences in the space provided. Miss Mary is watching my sisters. Miss Blondelle is watching my sisters. My sisters are younger. I have two sisters. My mother will return. They will watch them until mother returns. 13. Unscramble the following sentence to match the model sentence. Then write an original sentence that imitates the model. Write your sentences in the space provided. Model sentence: Behind my ears, my mother, to stop my whining, has dabbed the stingiest bit of her gardenia perfume, the last present my father gave her before he disappeared into memory. the first thing has wrapped to stop my pain when she reached on the side of my ankle the largest bag of frozen peas inside the door my mother the freezer offered