Tip #3

Learning objective: To build awareness and understanding of sentence structure.

Following yesterday’s tip (ask students to write a two word sentence), ask students to write a three word sentence; then a four word sentence; then a five word sentence; and so on. Continue building that word count as long as time and student-stamina allows. Use feedback/peer assessment to analyse how your students tend to build sentences – and any structures that are over-used eg coordinating conjunctions (…and… and… and…) or or under-used. Look for possible teaching points, eg range of conjunctions used, use of non-finite clauses, adverbial phrases, etc.

Repeat the exercise periodically to assess progression in sentence variety.