Friday, June 15, 2018

Three Sentences


Middle school ELD (English language development). This is one of those classes where you wouldn't realize the students aren't considered "fluent" in English just by talking to them.

The teacher had us practice writing sentences. We only had three to do, but we managed to make this take the whole period.

How did such an activity take the entire period? Some of it was due to language struggles, but the rest was just middle school squirreliness. Combine that with sub day and end of the year...

We did have another activity that we never got to.

Anyway, your assignment (if you choose to participate) is to write their three sentences. You may add more words than assigned, but you must have one of each of the words listed, and in this order:
  1. subject, helping verb, predicate, adverb, prepositional phrase, punctuation
  2. subject, conjunction, subject, past tense predicate, prepositional phrase, adverb
  3. subject, helping verb, predicate, article, adjective, noun, adverb
(They'd been doing this sort of thing for days. I even pointed out what the sentences should look like. I had them write sentences on the board and helped them "fix" them. But the playing around...)

26 comments:

  1. I would have to go back and figure out what the heck is a helping verb, LOL. It does seem like it would not be a complicated assignment unless you factor into the equation end of the year and 7th graders :)

    betty

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    Replies
    1. A helping verb is one that extends the meaning of the main verb. I am explaining this (am is the helping verb).

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  2. It's the weekend, so I choose to procrastinate on the assignment until Sunday night. ;)

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  3. LOL! I laughed at Betty's response. But I agree with her too!

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  4. I can see this being a great exercise for us older ones who want to keep our mental facilities intact.

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    Replies
    1. Sure. And it's not as hard as you think once you start one of them ;)

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  5. Crap....I tried, I can't do it.

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  6. I love English.
    1. He was making coffee noisily in the kitchen.
    2. Tom and Jerry chased each other around the room hilariously.
    3. Rain was falling and filled the huge urn completely.

    I think I included all the parts in order, did I?

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    Replies
    1. A+ (Well, not completely in order, but close enough.)

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  7. I'm with Betty. And Patricia's comment cracked me up.

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    Replies
    1. Yea, well, I didn't expect many to do the assignment...

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  8. This class exercise contrasts deeply with what we had to do in our 7th grade language arts class. Sentence diagramming, anyone?

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    Replies
    1. Ah, but your 7th grade language arts class was full of native speakers. English is their second language. (At least. I'm not sure where all of them are from.)

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  9. I think brains would seep out my ears.

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  10. Oh my goodness, I always hated those "technical grammar terms" - I'm afraid I can't do the assignment 🙈

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  11. I can do it, but I won't. Too early. :)
    Congratulations, you are a winner in the giveaway of my book, Bubba and Squirt's Big Dig to China! I will need your email address to give to the publisher. You can send it to me: sherry.a.ellis@gmail.com

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  12. I'm not even going to pretend to try those sentences, just hand me my big fat red "F".
    Popped in via peppylady.

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    Replies
    1. This was extra credit only. No Fs for incompletes ;)

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