Playing with sentences

By Nancy Devine co-director Red River Valley Writing Project

Blog: http://nancydevine.blogspot.com
Twitter username: nancydevine
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Introduction
 Work at the sentence level can help writers generate content by giving them the procedural
knowledge to do so. Procedural knowledge is knowing how to do something.

 Work at the sentence level should not comprise all of writing instruction but, because it does help
students with the kind of procedural knowledge necessary to generate content, it can be helpful at the
beginning of writing as well as during revision.

 Work at the sentence level is most productive (and enjoyable) if it’s playful and fun.

 The strategies and activities to follow are designed to help writers generate content and having fun
doing so. (I wouldn’t want a student to think he or she is being sentenced to death!)
Verb Dictionary
 An apt verb can replace a so-so verb and its accompanying adverb. So writers can improve their work by
knowing a lot of verbs.

 Example: I moved slowly at the mall. Becomes: I lollygagged at the mall.

 In order to deliberately increase their verb vocabulary, writers can collect, in the form of a personal dictionary,
verbs they want to make a part of their working vocabularies.

 Verb dictionary model:

 Verb:
 My definition:
 My sentence using this verb:
 Why I include this verb in my dictionary:

 Sample entry:

 Verb: lollygag
 My definition: to move slowly while deliberately wasting time
 My sentence using this verb: My friend likes to lollygag when I wait for her.
 Why I include this verb in my dictionary: I like the sound of it.
Word painting

 Word painting is a simple, straightforward activity to help writers generate content

for sentences. Writers simply create (or their teachers can) a frame on a sheet of
paper. Students pick a topic about which to write (something they can describe) and
then fill the inside of the frame with words that help the reader “see” the subject of
the painting. Those words then can be put together to form a sentence or sentences.

 Word painting can also be used with ELL students. I suggest taking ELL students to
a particular place where they won’t know all the English vocabulary necessary to
name what’s at the place. Working with Native English speakers, ELL students can
point out particular aspects of the places while their Native English speakers peers
can show them the English word for things. Additionally, ELL students can teach
their Native English speaking peers new non-English vocabulary.
Word Painting
Three-D Writing
A writer can---
 Define someone or something; say what it/he/she is.

 Distinguish someone or something; call attention to it/he/she from a field of others.

 Describe something about someone or something; reveal one of its his/her traits.

 Define:
 Tofu is soybean curd.
 A do-do bird is an extinct animal.

 Distinguish:
 Tofu is the product sitting on my table.
 A do-do bird is the animal I most admire.

 Describe:
 Tofu is firm.
 A do-do bird was flightless.
Three-D Writing
 Since, as we read, we tend to associate things and/or things that are close together, it often makes sense to
include one, two or three of the D’s right after the noun or pronoun with which you are associating it.

 Here are two sentences that will get a boost from 3-D writing
 1. I hate tofu.
 2. Scientists study the do-do bird.

 Define.
 I hate tofu, soybean curd.
 Scientists study the do-do bird, an extinct animal.

 Distinguish
 I hate tofu, the product sitting on my table.
 Scientists study the do-do bird, the animal I most admire.

 Describe
 I hate tofu, firm.
 Scientists study the do-do bird, flightless.

 Three-D sentence
 I hate tofu, firm and white, its texture creepy, shivering on the plate in the refrigerator, the one food I refuse
to eat.
The Can Strategy
 In A New Rhetoric, Francis and Bonniejean Christensen write “when you want to sharpen the image of the objected
designated by a noun, you can do only the same three things” (24). You can “describe” a noun, “point to some part”
or “go beyond the object” and “suggest[ing] its likeness to something else” (24). From this, I devised the CAN
Strategy.

 CAN stands for Consider A Noun. It names what someone does when he or she using the strategy. Can also stands
for what a writer does with this strategy: Compare, Assign action, Note detail and description.

 Using the noun Heron, the CAN strategy in action looks something like this:

 Compare it: like a dive-bomber

 Assign it action: swoops near the water
 Note----detail: its wing span more than eight feet
 description: fast, agile, swift

 Next, ask students to try to put all the information they generated in the CAN Strategy in a sentence or two. You
might want to provide a model sentence, but not providing them with one gives you a chance to see what your
students can do alone.
The Can Strategy
 A heron, like a dive-bomber, swift and agile, swoops near the water, its wing span more than eight feet.

 Like a dive-bomber, swift and agile, a heron swoops near the water, its wing span more than eight feet.

 If necessary label the parts not with grammatical terms but by the job or function each part does:

 A heron, like a dive-bomber (comparison) swift and agile (description) swoops near the water (action) its wing
span more than eight feet. (detail).

 Like a dive-bomber, (comparison) swift and agile, (description) a heron swoops near the water (action), its
wing span more than eight feet. (detail).

 Here are student examples from high school age writers:

 Like a salesperson, a telephone marketer, tall and dresses fancy (sic) bribes his customers, his voice loud and
clear.

 Like a mythical creature, the moose, elusive and majestic, lumbers slowly through the tall marsh grasses, his
legs sloshing in the shallow waters.

 Like a coat rack, his antlers, branched and elongated, extend from his massive head, their prongs draped with
marsh grasses.
The Can Strategy
 Because students know the structure of CAN and what CAN encourages them to do, they seek out
details and descriptions to satisfy CAN’s categories. “Once can see what he knows how to say”
(Christensen 13). Also the strategy helps students create an accurate rendering of reality.

 From another student: Like most, the snow, white and textured, clings to the trees outside, its
crystals frozen to touch.

 In the sentence Like moss, the snow white and textured, clings to the trees outside, its crystals
frozen to touch. the action, detail and description are all part of one moment; the structure of the
sentence gives the writer a chance to say it that way so the reader will perceive it that way.

 To write: The snow was like moss. It was white and textured. It clings to the trees outside. Its
crystals were frozen to touch. says that the action, description and detail came one after the other,
in a kind of succession that doesn’t really get at this image (Christensen 23).
Can Strategy
Sentence Ruining
 Sentence Ruining involves playing around with language because writing well requires just that. Wilhelm,
Baker and Dube quote Vygotsky, who said of play: “In play, the child always behaves beyond his average age,
above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself” (24). Using whatever text
we can find in my classroom, students find complete sentences to ruin. To ruin a sentence, they (and now you)
simply remove one word so that what results is no longer a sentence.

 Sentence Ruining is exactly what it sounds like: taking a complete sentence and making it not a complete
sentence. The requirement with sentence ruining is that you can remove only one word from a sentence in
order to ruin it.

 The main goal of Sentence Ruining is to demonstrate to students that they probably know what a complete
sentence is just because they use complete sentences every single day in order to do what they need to do.

 Sentence: My dog runs around the block.

 Ruined version: My dog around the block.

Sources
Christensen, Bonniejean and Francis. A New Rhetori c. Harper
and Row: New York, 1976.
Wilhelm, Jeffrey D, Baker, Tanya N and Julie Dube Strat eg ic
Readi ng Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001 .