SENTENCE COMBININGSENTENCE COMBININGBECOMING STRONGER WRITERS

Verbal – a form of a verb that functions as another part of speech.

Types of verbals:1)Participles2)Infinitives3)GerundsThese verbals each become part of a phrase,

which includes its complement and modifiers. *Complement – a word or words that

completes the predicate.*Modifier – another word for adjective.

Participle – a verb form used as an adjective to modify nouns and pronouns.

Phrase – a group of words without a subject or a verb.

Participial phrase – a phrase that contains a participle and its complement and modifiers. (Jane Bell Kiester)

Building Sentences with Building Sentences with Participial PhrasesParticipial Phrases

Practice: Take short sentences, or kernels, and combine them to form more complex sentences.

Example #1: 1)I took small sips of Coke.2)I was sitting on the ground.3)I was sitting in a shady corner.4)My back was against the wall.How can we combine the sentences to make

one complex sentence?

Building Sentences with Building Sentences with Participial PhrasesParticipial Phrases

Sitting on the ground in a shady corner with my back against the wall, I took small sips from a can of Coke.

Participial phrase – Sitting on the ground in a shady corner with my back against the wall.

*If the participial phrase begins the sentence or comes in the middle of the sentence, it is usually set off by a comma. If, however, it is at the end of the sentence, it requires no comma.

Building Sentences with Building Sentences with Participial PhrasesParticipial Phrases

Example #2:1)I stood on the roof of my apartment

building.2)It was dawn.3)I watched the sun rise through the clouds.4)The clouds were crimson.

Try it now on your white board.

Building Sentences with Building Sentences with Participial PhrasesParticipial Phrases

Example #3:1)I was sitting on the window ledge.2)The ledge overlooked the narrow street.3)I watched the children.4)The children were frolicking in the first

snow of the season.

Try it now on your white board.

Activity – “Motorcycle Pack”*Students work in pairs or trios.One student is the recorder.Each group takes the choppy, unmodified

sentences of each cluster in “Motorcycle Pack” and combines them into one complex sentence.

First - Each will create the sentence on their white board.

Next -The group will choose the most appealing sentence and record it, creating a compressed and rich narrative.

*from W. Strong, Sentence Combining: A composing book. Taken from Bridging English 4th Edition (Milner and Milner)

Cluster 1: (do as a class in order to model)1)We could hear them coming.2)They were way off in the distance.3)They were winding down the road.4)The road was through the mountains.5)The road was east of town.

Cluster 2:6) The sound made us think of power saws.7) But the sound was more sustained.8) The sound was deeper.9) The sound got louder.

Cluster 3:10) The first one broke into view.11) He was at the edge of town.12) The edge is where the brush is thick.13) The brush was full of shadows.

Cluster 4:14) The others swarmed behind him.15) The others rapped their pipes.16) The others brought the noise.17) The noise was like a wave.

Cluster 5:18) The leader geared down.19) The gearing down was at the grocery

store.20) The leader set the pace.21) The pace was swaggering.22) The pace was through the middle of

town.23) The leader did not glance to the side.24) The leader did not acknowledge the

people.25) The people watched from the sidewalk.

Cluster 6:26) The leader personified seriousness.27) The leader personified bravado.28) The seriousness was leather.29) The bravado was chrome.

Cluster 7:30) The others stared at his back.31) The others tried to imitate him.32) The others tried their best.

Cluster 8:33) He lifted his right hand.34) The lifting was at the highway.35) The highway belonged to the state.36) The highway intersected Main Street.

Cluster 9:37) The pack leaned to the right.38) The pack followed him.39) The pack accelerated toward the road.40) The road was open.

Cluster 10:41) Exhaust ripped the air.42) The exhaust was from motorcycles.43) The exhaust was like an insult.

Cluster 11:44) The air healed.45) The healing took all day.

Culminating activity:Each group reads its narrative to the class. The class compares the stories for their

fluency and complexity.

*California content standard – W/O/L 1.1: Identify and correctly use clauses

(e.g., main and subordinate), phrases (e.g., gerund, infinitive, and participial), and mechanics of punctuation (e.g., semicolons, colons, ellipses, hyphens).