Sentences

Using Phrases and Clauses to Build Sentences 
Simple Sentences: A simple sentence is a single independent clause.

1. Some students like to study in the mornings.
2. Juan and Arturo play football every afternoon.
3. Alicia goes to the library and studies every day.
4. Jeri rode to school in her mom's yellow Ford Mustang convertible with the top down and smiled all the way.

Compound Sentences: A compound sentence is made up of two or more independent clauses hooked together with a comma and a coordinating conjunction. 

1. I tried to speak Spanish, and my friend tried to speak English.
2. Alejandro played football, so Maria went shopping.
3. Alejandro played football, for Maria went shopping.

FANBOYS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoBE-E8VOc

This is your model sentence:  

There was only about a block to go before our bus stop, but I couldn't stand Stephen's whining another second.

-- Andrew Clements, The Report Card (2004)

This is an imitation by Jeff Anderson:  

It was only a mile until we reached the rest stop, but I couldn't hold it another second. 

Another imitation:  

It was only a day before the competition, but I couldn't concentrate on the game anymore. 

In your composition book, label this entry "Compound Sentence" and add today's date.  The write a sentence (imitating the sentences above) following this pattern:

It
or There
or He
or She
or [Name]  was only _____(complete the thought to create an independent clause)______, but ___(complete the thought to create an independent clause)___.

IC, + Coordinating Conjunction + IC. 

Building the Compound Sentence Pattern
Sentence,  IC	FAN BOYS Conjunction (Coordinating Conjunction) for and nor but or yet so	Sentence. IC
Nick had plenty of good ideas,	and	he knew what to do with them.
He tried to stare into her fiery gaze,	but	he couldn't stop looking at the purple vein bulging in her forehead.

A game for recognizing sentence patterns: http://www.quia.com/rr/126726.htm
And a quiz: http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/language_arts/sentence_types/quiz1848.html


Coming Next Time --
Complex Sentences:

1. When he handed in his homework, he forgot to give the teacher the last page.
2. The teacher returned the homework after she noticed the error.
3. The students are studying because they have a test tomorrow.
4. After they finished studying, Juan and Maria went to the movies
5. Juan and Maria went to the movies after they finished studying.

http://eslbee.com/sentences.htm      Thanks to Jeff Anderson in Everyday Editing

http://learningediting.pbworks.com/w/page/15839781/Compound%20Sentences

Types of Sentences (Compared with Families)

The Compound Sentence

Phrases and Clauses

Mentor Sentences that Use Colons

Here are some great sentences that use colons. I'm giving myself extra credit for finding them because I collected the sentences, and gave the book, the author, and the pages they are from.

They're from Jerry Spinelli's book Smiles to Go, pages 30 and 31.
By the way, I greatly admire and enjoy Jerry Spinelli's writing, and I think a lot of you would like this book. Its lexile level is L490, but the interest level is much higher than that.
Ask me sometime to tell you about when I met Jerry Spinelli. To a junior high English teacher, that's like meeting a movie star or a rock star!

This is my summary of what's going on at this point in the book:
One of his best friends has recently made a name for himself at school by riding a skateboard down Dead Man’s Hill. Now Will is standing alone with his own skateboard at the top of Dead Man’s Hill, knowing that B.T. really did it, but not understanding how he could have.

Here are the sentences from the book:
The rising sun was straight ahead. I could look directly at it because it was bloody orange and just over the horizon and smoky with clouds. When I looked at the sun, my eyes were crossing 93 million miles of space. But my feet wouldn’t cross another inch. . .

Ninety three million miles of space in front of me, and every inch of it seemed packed with the things I was afraid of: high places, cramped places, dark places, thousand-leggers, speed, flying, death, change, time, pain, failure, criticism, roller coasters, train tracks, being wrong, being smelly, being late, being stupid, being rejected, black mambos, leeches, hantavirus, losing, deep water, uncertainty, being buried alive, being caught being afraid, myself. . .
I could see my epitaph:

HERE LIES WILLIAM JAY TUPPENCE
HE WAS AFRAID


from Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli, pages 30, 31

May 7/8, 2009

May 7/8, 2009

Turn in Book-of-the-Month Club Assessment if you haven't.

I. We practiced (again) recognizing dependent and independent clauses.

Independent and Dependent Clauses
a. In the following sentences, underline the independent clause once and the dependent clause twice. Remember that the independent clause can stand on it’s own. The dependent clause could have stood on its own except that it begins with a word or set of words that makes it dependent. [Sentences adapted from chapter 11 of Stand Tall.]

b. Find two spelling errors on this page.

1. Tree and Sophie were going to take the bus to the Midas Muffler shop in Baltimore where her dad worked.

2. I’m glad you think so because it’s the exact same thing your getting for Christmas.

3. Since she didn’t want her feet to freeze, Sophie marched in place.

4. When Tree got in the bus, he hit his head.

5. You need a bus with a sunroof so that you can stick your head out.

II. We played a game to review our seventh grade prefixes.

III. If time, we read from Stand Tall.
A2 read chapter 11.
B2 read from chapter 11.
B3 read from chapter 11.


We also had an opportunity to bring and share treats to celebrate the end of core testing.

Complex Sentences

Complex Sentences
Watch for information about Subordinating Conjunctions!

For now, see this very helpful site:
http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000377.htm

Here's another site about sentence patterns:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/sentencepatterns.html

And this site offers games and activities:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/sentencebasics/whatisasentence/