Ready-to-Use Sentence Activities: Unit 2 »

Jack Umstatter, a master English teacher with over 25 years' experience, is a multiple winner of the Teacher of the Year award. He currently teaches English in the Cold Spring Harbor School District in New York and educationand literature at Dowling College in Oakdale, New York. He is the author of Brain Games!, Hooked on English! and other practical teacher resources published by The Center.

This resource is one of six units in the Writing Skills Curriculum Library, a practical series that provides over 540 stimulating, ready-to-use activity sheets to help you teach and reinforce writing skills in middle/junior high and senior high school students, grades 6-12.

Each unit in the series focuses on a different area of writing skills and is complete and self-contained, including 90 reproducible activities in a variety of formats, a brief teacher's guide to effective use of the activities, and full answer keys. The activities can be used in any order in any developmental or corrective writing program to meet the specific needs of individual students, small groups, or an entire class.

For quick selection, each unit includes a detailed table of contents listing the major skills/topics covered in that unit followed by the activities for teaching and reinforcing each skill. Here's just an overview of what you'll find in each unit:

Unit 1 READY-TO-USE WORD ACTIVITIES provides 90 activity sheets to help students learn the importance of word selection and precision in the writing process. Topics covered include connotation and denotation, roots, prefixes and suffixes, synonyms and antonyms, and expressions that heighten students' awareness of making correct word choices.

Unit 2 READY-TO-USE SENTENCE ACTIVITIES presents 90 activities that involve students in the essentials of sentence construction, subjects and predicates, complements phrases, clauses, types of sentences, agreement, and mechanics as well as problems of wordiness, transition, ambiguity, and more.

Unit 3 READY-TO-USE PARAGRAPH WRITING ACTIVITIES features 90 stimulating activities that lead students through the steps of writing clear, convincing paragraphs. Topics range from brainstorming techniques and topic sentences to using supporting idea and introducing, organizing, and concluding the paragraph.

Unit 4 READY-TO-USE PREWRITING & ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES offers 90 reproducible activities that explore ways of gathering and using information intelligently. Activities cover a wide range of topics such as information sources, categorizing, topic and subtopic summaries, outlines, and term paper ideas and formats.

Unit 5 READY-TO-USE REVISION & PROOFREADING ACTIVITIES presents 90 high-interest activities to guide students through the problem areas of writing including verb tense, words often confused, superfluity, issues of clarity, and proofreading techniques used by professional writers.

Unit 6 READY-TO-USE PORTFOLIO DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES includes 90 activities that expose students to different types of writing such as literary analysis, stories and sketches, narratives, reviews, letters, journal entries, newspaper articles, character analysis, stories and sketches, narratives, reviews, letters, journal entries, newspaper articles, character analysis, dialogue writing, essays, and commercials.

Together, the six units in the Writing Skills Curriculum Library give you an unparalleled store of tested, ready-to-use exercises for building skills in al aspects of writing. They will help your students learn the elements of effective writing and enjoy the experience at the same time.

About the Writing Skills Curriculum Library.
About Unit 2.
Teacher's Correction Marks.
SECTION ONE.
Beginning with the basics.
Activity.
Number Title Focus.
2.1. What Will a Mouse Do? Sentence classifications.
2.2. Three of a Kind Parts of speech.
2.3. Looking Into the Heart of the Sentence Parts of speech crossword puzzle.
2.4. The Terms of the Sentence Parts of speech crossword puzzle.
2.5. Fitting the Pieces Together Parts of speech.
2.6. Putting it All Together Phrases and clauses.
2.7. We Have Attitudes! Fifteen of Them! Illustrative sentences.
2.8. Mood Sentences Mood of the sentence.
2.9. The Periodic Sentence Periodic sentences.
2.10. A Starter Sentence's Purpose Opening sentences.
2.11. Strengthening Your Sentences Sentence details.
2.12. Cop an Attitude Topic sentences.
2.13. Making Observations Describing people.
2.14. Descriptions of People Describing people.
2.15. More Descriptions of People Descriptive adjectives.
2.16. Poetic Descriptions Writing poetry.
2.17. Making Sense (And Sentences) Out of Poetry Interpreting poetry.
2.18. Structuring Your Sentences Sentence classifications.
2.19. How Simple? How Compound? Sentence classifications How Complex?
SECTION TWO.
MOVING ONWARD AND UPWARD.
Activity.
Number Title Focus.
2.20. Staying Simple for Starters The simple sentence.
2.21. Main Verbs Main verbs crossword puzzle.
2.22. Life's Big Question Subjects and predicate.
2.23. Parts-of-Speech Trios Parts of speech.
2.24. Five Each Parts of speech word find.
2.25. Double-Duty Words Verbs and nouns word find.
2.26. Sentence Associates Grammar terms word find.
2.27.Adjectives, Adverbs, and Spelling Description and spelling.
2.28. Parts-of-Speech Fill-Ins Parts of speech.
2.29. Working Your Way Through the Parts Sentence construction of Speech.
2.30. More Parts-of-Speech Fill-Ins Sentence construction.
2.31. Match the Sentence With Its Description Parts of speech.
2.32. Dissecting the Sentence Parts of speech crossword puzzle.
SECTION THREE.
Sentence essentials.
Activity.
Number Title Focus.
2.33. Finding the 21 Verb Phrases Verb phrases word find.
2.34. Placing the Prepositional Phrases Prepositional phrases.
2.35. Locating Verbal Phrases Verbal phrases.
2.36. Verbals Vying for Victory Participles, gerunds, and infinitives.
2.37. Finding the 15 Phrases Phrases.
2.38. An Olympian Experience Phrases.
2.39. Showing Variety Within Your Sentences Phrases and clauses.
2.40. The Clause Course Clauses.
2.41. Finding the Dependent or Subordinate Clauses Clauses word find.
2.42. Making Two Into One Clauses.
2.43. Wise Words From Wise Women Sentence building.
2.44. Double the Score Phrases and clauses.
2.45. Developing a Story Through Phrases Story writing.
2.46. Filling in the Fragments Sentence building.
2.47. Add to, Take From, or Make Another Change Fragments and run-ons.
2.48. Jive With Five Fragments and run-ons.
2.49. Knowing When a Group of Words Fragments and run-ons Is a Sentence.
2.50. Running Down the Run-On Sentence Sentence corrections.
2.51. Where Did the Other Words Go? Sentence building.
SECTION FOUR.
Improving your sentences.
Activity.
Number Title Focus.
2.52. Too Many Words Writing concise sentences.
2.53. Keep It Simple Writing concise sentences.
2.54. Wordiness Is Out Writing concise sentences.
2.55. Let's Not Overstate It Illustrative sentences.
2.56. One's Right and One's Wrong Sentence correction.
2.57. The 49'ers Commas.
2.58. Detecting Sentence Errors Sentence correction.
2.59. Cutting Out the Confusion Words often confused crossword puzzle.
2.60. Avoiding the Passive Voice Voice.
2.61. Animals in Similes Simile.
2.62. Kicking Out the Cliches Cliches.
2.63. Explaining the Idioms Idioms.
SECTION FIVE.
Shaping sensational sentences.
Activity.
Number Title Focus.
2.64. Three-Word Sentences Parts of speech and sentence building.
2.65. Scrambled Sentences Sentence building.
2.66. Joining Words to Make Sentences Sentence building.
2.67. Constructing the Sentences Sentence building.
2.68. Consecutive Letters Sentence building.
2.69. The Proper Arrangement Rearranging words.
2.70. CPR For These Sentences! Description.
2.71. Using Modifiers Effectively Description.
2.72. Matching the Dependents With Clauses the Independents.
2.73. Matching the Cause and the Effect Clauses.
2.74. Adding to the Sentence Base Improving sentences.
2.75. Follow-Up Sentences Combining sentences.
2.76. Details Never Hurt Improving sentences.
SECTION SIX.
WRITING MORE MATURELY.
Activity.
Number Title Focus.
2.77. Connecting the Words Word and sentence order.
2.78. Putting Them Back Together Word and sentence order.
2.79. Following a Harder Path Word and sentence order.
2.80. Four Sentences Sentence building.
2.81. Transitional Words Word-Find Transitions word find.
2.82. Subordinating Conjunctions Word-Find Conjunctions word find.
2.83. Cryptic Conjunctions Conjunctions puzzle.
2.84. Transitional Words and Phrases Transitions and their uses.
2.85. Combining Sentences Using transitions.
2.86. More Sentence Combinations Using transitions.
2.87. Subordination Constructing sentences.
2.88. Coordinating the Ideas Combining ideas.
2.89. Fifty Percent of the Time Sentence combining.
2.90. Showing Your Versatility Sentence construction.
Answer Key.