Sentence Writing Skills

Getting Started with Sentence Writing Skills - combining, rearranging, subtracting, and expanding

Establish a Writer's Vocabulary to Help with Revision

The heart of The Stack the Deck Writing Program is teaching four sentence manipulatory skills--combining, rearranging, subtracting, and expanding. Mastery of these skills will not only improve your students' syntactic fluency but also provide them with a writer's vocabulary that will aid them in revising a composition.

Before you begin the first sentence-combining exercise, we suggest that you ask your students, What is the fastest computer in the world? Some might respond IBM, or Macintosh, or Apple. Hopefully, someone will say the brain.

As soon as you hear the brain response, bring out a cauliflower or a cabbage or a grapefruit, and tell your students that they are actually looking at a brain. Better yet, don a brain thinking cap or bring out a brain jello mold and tell your students that the greatest computer in the world--their brain--automatically composed one sentence using special skills:

Write four sentences like these on the blackboard or overhead projector transparency:

There is a boy.
The boy is small.
There is a pond.
The boy fell.

Ask your students to make one sentence out of these four as quickly as possible - orally. Automatically, someone will probably say:

The small boy fell into the pond.
or
There is a small boy who fell into the pond.

These writer's vocabulary words become revision words as your students begin to rewrite a first draft.

Writer's Vocabulary Checklist Questions for Revision

Combining
1. Do I repeat the same dull openings, e.g., I, The, And then, etc.?
2. Which sentences can I combine to make them more interesting for my audience?

Rearranging
1. Which sentences can I rearrange to avoid repeating the same dull sentence beginnings?
2. Am I emphasizing key ideas by placing them in a position of importance--beginning or end of a sentence? If not, how can I rearrange the sentence?

Subtracting
1. Where did I pad my sentences by adding empty or dead words to fill up space?
2. Did I get off the topic? Where should I subtract unnecessary words or ideas?

Expanding
1. Where do I need to expand with journalistic questions--Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?--to support my main ideas?
2. Did I skip information my audience needs to know? Where should I expand?

Our Learning Off-the-Wall Classroom Posters serve as a constant reminder of our writer's vocabulary and can be used to reinforce key ideas taught in our textbooks.

Also, our most lauded teacher labor saving device, the SOS sheet, helps students apply the skills of combining and rearranging in revising a composition.

We do not market the brain thinking cap or brain jello mold. However, we know the company that sells them. If interested, Email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .