Students will be able to ...
1. Do Now: Identify the subject in verb of the sentences on the handout.
2. Students will be put into groups of four. I will go over the rules for the game "Sentence Smackdown" - on the board, there is a chart with two columns - one for subject and one for verb. Each group will be assigned one of the do-now sentences. They will receive two giant index cards. On one index card they will write the subject of the sentence and on the other the verb. One group at a time, one member of the group will read the sentence and as he/she is reading the other members of the group will put the subject and verb of the sentence. We will discuss briefly to make sure that everyone agrees with each group.
3. I will explain that we will be discussing how to make sentences more interesting. Often, this means that we add stuff to sentences, but short sentences can be very powerful. We will read the excerpt from We Were the Mulvaneys. We will then read a poem made up of short sentences.
4. Students will use the rest of the time to make a poem of ten or more lines/sentences. Each sentence is to have no more than four words. Alternatively, students can write a prose piece like the excerpt from We Were the Mulvaneys.
5. Students will share.
Were students able to identify the subject and verbs of the sentences?
Looking at the written work, how powerful were students' short sentences?