Have students write five short sentences about a topic currently being studied. Then ask them to combine some or all of the short sentences into longer ones. They should try to connect the sentences together with a comma and an and, but, or, nor, for, so, or yet. Display some of these sentences for discussion.
“It’s good practice to imitate your favorite writers. All writers do that at first.”
—J. Scieszka
Help students see that sometimes a single word or idea from one sentence can be moved to another sentence to combine them. This kind of sentence combining cuts out a great deal of repetition and makes writing more concise and punchy.
Teaching tip: Have students cross out words that are repeated in two or more sentences and then combine the remaining parts.
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This page shows that moving a phrase from one sentence to another is a form of sentence combining. Again, have them cross out the parts that are repetitive, and the key phrase will remain.
You can also help your student combine using compound subjects or compound verbs.
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Use this page to teach students how to connect related sentences in compound and complex forms.
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