Sentence Variation

I was offering a student feedback on her descriptive writing recently and something dawned on me. I always offer a compliment, as well as one comment, with my students, because you don’t want to bombard them with too many critiques. (More often than not…they’ll go back and rewrite the same thing they just submitted.)

I noticed this particular student started several sentences with “The” throughout the written piece.  I complimented her on her use of figurative language and I asked for a little sentence variation. It doesn’t mean she can’t use the word “The” to start her sentences; I just wanted her to see how differently the piece might look if she made any changes.  Maybe you already do this!

I always ask my students to read the passage out loud.  This, alone, will help catch many mistakes.  

I want to point out that this is her first draft with zero revisions or edits. This is exactly how the student wrote the original copy:

The sunrise in the sky

The sunrise in the sky shocked me with beauty. The pink cotton candy clouds floated across the sky.  The horizon was endless with excellent colors.  The big skies turned bright orange and the glittery waterfall reflected a great big rainbow.  Huge shadows came from a gigantic mountain. I froze with delite.  The sun smiled a mile wide and I headed for home.

After Revision:

The sunrise in the sky shocked me with beauty. Pink cotton candy clouds floated across the sky.  The horizon was endless with excellent colors. Big skies turned bright orange and the glittery waterfall reflected a great big rainbow.  Huge shadows came from a gigantic mountain. I froze with delite.  The sun smiled a mile wide and I headed for home.

I know changing the first word isn’t going to make or break a written piece, but I do want my students to think like authors.  In addition, it’s important for students to receive applicable feedback.

Additional Suggestions:

• Embed transitional or temporal words at the beginning of each sentence
• Start each sentence with a different letter
• You can always refer to my newsletter on 17 sentence starters