Writing Stronger Sentences — Part 3: From Simple to Complex

Heather Adams: Yesterday we talked about how we can turn our simple sentences into more interesting compound, complex sentences. And what did we learn about? What kind of words did we add into our sentences? We did some adding. What were those kinds of words? Say, if you remember.

Students: Conjunction. Connecting words.

Heather Adams: I heard two answers. I heard conjunctions. If you said conjunctions, pat on the back. And I heard connecting words. If you said connecting words also, pat on the back. Conjunctions are connecting words, right?

Narrator: Third grade teacher Heather Adams is guiding her students through day two of a lesson on sentence combining. Today they'll be writing their own sentences about animals they've been studying in science, and they'll try out the conjunctions they practice with yesterday — and, but, or, and so. She starts with a quick review.

Heather Adams: We're going to start writing about our animals. As you know, we're writing what kind of books?

Students: Who Would Win!

Heather Adams: Who Would Win books, right? And so this is a chance for us to write about some of the animals that we've researched and almost like a pretend battle, right?

Narrator: But adding conjunctions is just one piece of the puzzle. They also need to know when to replace, rearrange, or take out words to make their writing flow smoothly.

Heather Adams: And we also learned some other strategies. Sometimes we realize we should take out some words. We don't want to be super repetitive and sometimes we even move them around or replace them. We use they or it. So we're going to be using all of these strategies that we talked about yesterday, and these are just some different ways of sentence combining, and there's not just one right way to do it. Remember last time some of us added different conjunctions or replaced different words. So we're going to get to have some fun and really just kind of show that artistic side of writing today. Here's a sentence that I have up here, and I was looking at the important body parts part of my notes. So I wrote, tigers have sharp teeth. Tigers have sharp claws. Tigers have a tail. What's something you notice about the way those sentences are written?

Student: They're very short.

Heather Adams: Exactly. These sentences are really, really short. I noticed that too. What word do you notice that I used over and over? What word?

Students: Have. Tiger.

Heather Adams: Tigers. Exactly. And tigers is repeated and every sentence starts with "tigers have." Tigers have. Tigers have. It almost makes my writing sound like another list. And we don't want our writing to sound like a list. A lot of you suggested that maybe I should use this powerful strategy. Adding conjunctions helps me to make simple sentences into combined complex compound sentences. So let's try to see if maybe we can do better. Are there any details here that are related? Remember our "and" conjunction puts related ideas together. If you had to pick two related ideas here, what are kind of related? What are sort of related ideas in my simple sentences? Molly.

Molly: Sharp claws and teeth.

Heather Adams: Yeah, I noticed Molly when she just said that she said sharp claws and teeth.

Wow. Molly, first of all, deserves an air high five, because I want to show you what Molly just did. Tigers have sharp claws and teeth. So Molly not only added a conjunction, she took out a repeated word that wasn't really needed. It makes more sense and I think it sounds better. When I heard Molly's sentence, I was like, that's it. It sounds right. So what we just did here was we used a few of these different strategies. We added conjunctions, we took out repetitive words that just didn't make our sentences sound polished. They didn't make our sentences sound sophisticated. We don't need to say tigers 800 times. We don't need to say tigers have this, tigers have this, tigers have this. We're going to use the power of conjunctions, the power of taking out unnecessary words, maybe even rearranging words or replacing them with words that sound better. And that's how we're going to start writing our first paragraph. Our first part for each one of our animals.

Narrator: I am going to come right back to talk with you guys as she moves around the room. Ms. Adams weaves reminders about sentence combining strategies into her feedback to help them stick.

Heather Adams: How are you guys doing over here? Did you figure out any conjunction spots yet? Because they have short tail and short lakes. Maybe those would be related ideas that you could combine. How's it going? Were you able yet to use any of our sentence combining strategies? Anybody want to share one? Beckett? You want to share one?

Beckett: They also have fins so they can swim fast away from creatures that want to eat them.

Heather Adams: Ooh, I heard that so conjunction, right? And that so conjunction means that there's a cause and effect. So because they have fins, they can swim so fast away from predators. I love that. It sounds so much better than if Beckett had written like they have fins. Puffer fish have fins. Period. So much more interesting. Anybody else have one?

Student: A giant squid has big eyes and sucker rings so they can catch and see prey really easy.

Heather Adams: I think I heard three conjunctions in that sentence. So I love how you kind of combined some of the body parts, but not in a listy way. It sounded like it had a purpose sharing these. They have this and this so they can do this and this. Guys, great job. Keep on drafting and think about all those sentence combining strategies you can add, you can take out words, move them around. That's the fun part of being a writer and being an artist in this way. Nice job. All right, let's just pause for just a second everyone. First of all, two thumbs up to you. We have turned some really sort of boring lists of facts and body parts into interesting sentences. And we've combined these ideas in such a way that I think readers are going to be excited to read them and it's going to help them really picture everything that that animal has to offer.

Narrator: Ms. Adams and her students have accomplished a lot in two days. Their writing journey started with direct instruction on conjunctions and has taken them to a place where they are now drafting and revising their very own Who Will Win books?

Heather Adams: Lena, would you share yours? Awesome. Alright, Lena, maybe you wouldn't mind sharing this one that starts with orcas have ...

Lena: Orcas have fins and tails, but they are mammals.

Heather Adams: Ooh. Did you hear some conjunctions in Lena's writing? Can you tell me one of the conjunctions that you heard in Lena's sentence?

Students: But.

Heather Adams: Exactly. So I love how Lena combined tails, fins, and mammals. Those were three separate facts that she had about orcas. And it's a little surprising for mammals, like humans, to have fins and tails. And so I love that she kind of surprised us with that fact, "but they are mammals." That was awesome, Lena, nice job. Air high five to Lena. Alright, so everybody I'm so proud of just, we've just barely started this writing project and you've already brought your animals to life.

Narrator: With intentional scaffolding throughout her lessons, Ms. Adams is helping her students build confidence with writing tools so they can focus less on the mechanics of language and more on the stories they want to tell.

Heather Adams: So nice job. Let's do an air high five to a partner.

Narrator: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Hastings/Quillen Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the AFT, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and anonymous donors. Special thanks to Keys to Literacy, Franklin Public Schools, and Oak Street Elementary, located in Franklin, Massachusetts. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel @RUTeaching. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington D.C., the Barksdale Reading Institute and First Book.