Dissecting Sentences

Our class has been working on becoming better writers. I use many of the ideas from this book to help me teach writing.

The one phrase I use most frequently is:

Every sentence needs

Somebody doing something.

It is basic and straightforward.  In kindergarten, we learn to make many sentences by using this rule. Well, now that we have graduated to first grade, I like to have my students expand their writing. 

To launch our lesson, we worked in pairs to look for what good sentences need.  We looked at only one sentence; most often, the first sentence in the book.   We began with who, then, looked for what, and so forth.  After each one, we shared aloud our findings.  Here are samples of what the student work looked like. 



This sentence led to a great discussion of other ways to say at nighttime.

 We talked about how sometimes the author uses the illustrations to tell us the setting.

 I loved how any text at all reading levels could be used.

Stay tuned.  I hope to post this week student examples of students creating a super sentence. 

Happy Teaching and Learning!

P.S.  Are you wondering where the graphics came from?  They are from here .