Sentence Drills
Change state-of-being verbs.
1. A scared girl is alone in the woods.
2. My morning coffee is bitter.
3. Tonight’s homework is to take notes.
4. There are three reasons students should complete all homework assignments.
5. Sue and Bob were at the movie last night.
6. There are some birds right outside my window.
7. The woman’s shelter is a worthy charity.
8. Sue is swimming at the local pool.
Add a how, when, and where to each sentence.
1. The roller coaster scared the little girl.
2. The rain fell all day.
3. Many students enjoy the long Labor Day weekend.
4. The organization supports people in the community.
5. The state fair opens in October.
6. Sue finished her homework assignment.
7. I will travel next weekend.
8. My phone rang.
9. The dinner tasted delicious.
Sentence Groups for Combining Sentence Exercises
Tom has dirty socks.
Tom throws his socks on the floor.
His socks smell.
Tom does not have any clean socks.
Today is sunny and warm.
It will probably rain this afternoon.
Today is a spring day in April.
There is no school today.
A pipe burst and flooded the basement.
The electricity went out.
There is a vocabulary test today.
Sue read her notes.
Sue practiced the definitions on Quizlet.com.
Tony sat on the edge of a sofa.
The sofa was soft.
The sofa was brown.
He waited for his mother to come home.
The day was only half over.
The student teacher was frustrated.
She was completely discouraged.
There was a thunderstorm.
The wind blew the trees.
The trees were moving like wild dancers.
The alarm rang at 6:30 A.M.
The alarm woke up Gary.
He had slept only a few hours.
Gary was tired.
Mary was making cookies.
Mary ran out of milk while making cookies.
Mary went to the store to buy milk.
Simple Sentence
A simple sentence is a sentence where all subjects complete all the same predicates
Walk
Talk
Eat
Run
Read
Work
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Compound Sentence
A compound sentence is two sentences with different subjects completing different predicates.
Walk
Talk
( , fanboys )
(;)
Eat
Run
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Complex Sentence
A complex sentence is a complete sentence with a dependent clause.
The dependent clause can be in the beginning or end of the sentence.
While Sue shopped at the store,
After Bill ran to school,
Since Mary was sick,
Although the sun was shining,
Tom waited
at home
when Bob finished his homework.
because he wanted to talk with Sue.
Writing Action Plan
Action: Type a core paragraph.

Use the five-sentence paragraph model to ensure sentence variety. (The number of
sentences and order of sentence structure need not reflect the model.)
Action: Have no more than 2 state-of-being verbs; change to action verbs

Revise “There are” sentences and change state-of-being verbs to action verbs.
Action: Add details about at least three predicates.


Locate and highlight predicates.
Add a word or phrase that answers the questions how, when, or where about at least
three of
the predicates.
Example:
Mary jogged three miles.
Mary jogged three miles through the trails.
Action: Add descriptors about at least three nouns.


Locate and highlight key nouns in the paragraph.
Add a word or phrase that describes the noun for three nouns.
Example:
Mary jogged three miles through the trails.
Mary jogged three miles through the wooded trails.
Action: Change simple words to stronger words.


Highlight at least four words that are simple words.
Use the thesaurus to find stronger words.
Example:
Mary jogged three miles through the wooded trails.
Mary jogged three miles through the forested trails.
Action: Revise the paragraph for completeness.


Add appositive phrases, prepositional phrases, or an infinitive phrase to include details
about the subjects and predicates.
Ensure the paragraph shows actions and the paragraph explains why the action
happened.
Example: Mary jogged three miles through the forested trails to train for a race.
Action: Isolate each sentence.



Are the sentences complete following rules of simple, compound, or complex sentences?
Do the sentences implement highlighted composition rules found in the Grammar
Handbook?
Do sentences start with different words or phrases?