How to Make your Sentences Better

Question

Instead of using simple sentences with only a subject and verb, combine simple sentences to make a compound sentence. Students can also increase their writing levels by using complex sentences.

Answer 1

Curious what secret skill is behind writing a fabulous sentence, after writing an incredible sentence, after casually writing an amazing sentence? The answer is ..............

MENTOR TEXTS!!!!!

As an English teacher who is also a writer, I never stop looking for ways for my students to learn writing in an authentic way. I believe writing can be taught and learned, through not only practice but really approaching the craft formulaically until it becomes more natural. Learning to write well means reading strong writing, studying its structure and form, and copying it stylistically until a writer finds his or her own voice.

In my writing classes, I teach grammar principles over the course of a few weeks, which I teach through a PowerPoint presentation with examples of the principles in a few sentences. Then, I have my students use them immediately in a creative writing assignment. After a month or so of such lessons, I’ll focus on grammar in application by sending them to The New York Times website.

The Times is a great source of interesting content and well-written prose. As a publication that features many human interest stories, the newspaper also offers a wide array of topics that can intrigue students of multiple backgrounds and interests.

As a one-to-one laptop school, my students benefit from being able to use the web independently in class. I ask them to access The Times website and I direct them toward a particular article of interest to me, like “In Life’s Last Moments, Open a Window,” an Opinion piece written by a doctor about her hospice patients.

The first thing I do is offer a model of what they’ll do independently in the next few minutes. I identify three sentences that do something well.

For instance, a sentence with an interruption separated by em dashes:

When I re-entered the room, the reclining chair that the patient — a tall, angular man in his 80s — had been thrashing around in had been turned to face out onto the garden and the double doors were open wide.

A short punchy sentence:

All he had wanted was that view.

And a sentence with a strong verb:

All cancers have the power to ravage a body, but each assails in distinctive ways.

Other examples might include the use of independent and dependent clauses, gerunds, absolute phrases and participial phrases.

I then write my own sentences demonstrating each of those strong writing tactics on a completely separate topic.

Answer 2

To create a compound sentence, combine simple sentences using a comma and conjunction. Complex sentences are the combination of a dependent and independent clause with a comma.