The Subject of Sentences

The new AQA English Language GCSE has a bullet point on Question 2, Paper 1, suggesting students might want to comment on sentences. Well sentence forms, if we are going to be pedantic about things. It is a small bullet point, so it might be easily missed when students franticly write an answer to the question: How does the writer use language to describe…?

I have a lot of problems with asking students to write about sentences. I love a good sentence. They are squishy and joyously fun to squeeze and poke. I love a crisp, brief sentence like Susan Hill’s sentences when she isn’t writing horror stories. I also love crammed sentence like the one’s Dickens uses. Go on, just add another clause. The problem I have is that we are often so basic when talking about sentences.

In fact, part of the problem comes from the language we have to describe a sentence. The basic terms of simple, compound and complex actually hinder expression. I have seen students crow bar the following phrases into their analysis.

The writer uses a simple sentence to show how simple his thoughts are at the moment.

The writer uses a complex sentence to show how complex his thoughts are at the moment.

Sadly, the words simple, complex and compound are very misleading to students because of the terms alone. If a student then has cottoned on that you could replace simple, compound and complex sentences with long and short sentences, you then get sentences like these ones:

The writer uses a long sentence to create atmosphere and slow things down.

The writer uses a short sentence to create pace.

The problem is that students have, at this point, not said anything precise, or even meaningful about the texts. In their heads, it might sound good, but in reality they are pretty bland and meaningless. Part of the problem is the terminology. Another part of the problem is the fact that students view sentences as something to be analysed in isolation. All sentences have hidden tendrils. They link to the sentences before and after them invisibly. Therefore, any discussion on sentences must focus on the rest of the sentences. Take this example extract from ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus. It isn’t likely to be in the actual exam, because there isn’t enough for a student to talk about in terms of techniques; but it is enough for looking at sentences. Along as you have more than three sentences, you can say something meaningful.

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I had a telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been yesterday.

Source: The Stranger by Albert Camus

So, what can we say about it? Well, it has lots of short sentences, so the writer is building up the pace of the story. The sentences are mainly simple, so this shows us that the narrator has simple thoughts about the death. Wrong! You can see how meaningless these terms can be.

I think students should know what the subject of a sentence is and be able to spot the subject in a sentence. Look at the extract and you see the following subjects.

1: Mother

2: ?

3: I

4: That

5: It

Sentences two and three are a little bit more complex, so I will come back to those later. What is interesting for me is the fact that the subject changes across the extract and more importantly the first sentence refers directly to the mother and the last sentence indirectly refers to the mother.

The subject of the last sentence refers to ‘it’ which creates a sense of distance compared to the first sentence which refers directly to the ‘mother’ and her death.

The first sentence has the ‘mother’ as the subject to reflect the shocked the narrator had to the event. The lack of any other words describing the subject highlights a lack of connection or thought. The voice doesn’t refer to her as ‘my mother’ or even use a more personal noun to describe her like ‘mum’ or ‘mummy’ suggests there is a level of detachment.  

Now, sentence two is quite interesting, because it is a grammatically incomplete. It should be a continuation of the first sentence joined by the co-ordinating conjunction ‘or’. The telegram message as part of sentence three is full of broken sentences, but that’s the convention of telegram writing.

The writer uses a grammatically incomplete sentence to create a level of informality and make the writing seem conversational. Therefore, the reader develops a personal connection to the narrator as they are speaking to them personally.     

The ends of the sentences are interesting too: today, yesterday, tomorrow, yesterday.

The writer tends to end sentences with a reference to a time which adds to the sense of confusion of the narrator and highlight a level of obsession.

In our teaching of the language questions, I feel that we need to be especially cautious with how we present it. Students need some clear structured teaching. Simple terminology will not work alone. In fact, I’d actively work against students use the words simple, compound, complex, long and short. I’d use these questions instead.

What is interesting about the way sentences start/end?

What is the subject of each sentence?

What is the connection /changes between the subjects?

How are the sentences structured?

Are sentences complete or incomplete?

How are the sentences linked?

From that starting point, I feel you come to most interesting points when talking about sentences. Then, you can add relevant terminology. However, there is nothing better for sentences than identifying the subject of each and every sentence. Then, look at how each sentence is linked.

It is interesting to note that identifying the subject of a sentence is directly supporting the structure question (Question 3) on the paper. My advice for teaching questions 2 and 3 on Paper 1 is focus on subject, subject and subject. Understand the subject of the sentences and extract and the rest follows.

No sentence is an island, so let’s stop treating them as discreet islands of meaning. Students, in fairness, only need to say one meaningful thing about sentences for question 2.  We just want that point to be meaningful and thoughtful. They can only be meaningful if students can see the trade routes in and out of that island.  

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Let's talk about lists, baby!

In the mad panic before the exam, teachers throw everything, metaphorically, at the students with a hope that one last thing will stick and be the golden nugget aiding their success. This year I threw a few things and one of those happened to be lists. In fact, I then thought I would throw lists at everything, and everyone, with some interesting effects.

Structurally, there can be three main places to list in a sentence: at the start; in the middle; and at the end.

1] Coffee, Twitter and music keep me sane.

2] I wonder how I ever coped without books, TV and the Internet as a child living in Wales.

3] Wales has a historic tradition of singing, playing rugby and cwtching.

Surprisingly, teaching students to write using lists is at times like going back to the beginning. The simple problem with a list is that it is generally used as a simple functional device: “I need to list these objects I placed in my bag.” However, students don’t actually see it as a tool which can be used to aid meaning.

A list at the start of a sentence can help to bamboozle a reader when you link odd combinations of words.  

Frogs, eggs and paperclips are just some of the things I can draw with skill.

A list at the end of a sentence can cause a sense of drama.

The door shoved open and there stood a man with eyes of pain, loathing and death.

 

Of course there are other effects, but that is up to the student to discover. However, a list in an unusual or particular place can cause a sense of expectation.

 On the cold, dark and lonely moor nestled a cold, dark lonely house where sat a woman in a window with cold, dark and lonely thoughts.

The flexibility of a list isn’t just limited to where you list in a sentence, but it is also what you list. Now, my shopping bag contains eggs, flour and milk. My annoyance, anger and humiliation was evident when a returned home to see that I had incorrectly, mistakenly and stupidly forgotten to buy wine – the important ingredient for all meals.

Listing different types of things can produce some interesting effects.

 

A list with emotions.

Fear, worry and disbelief were reflected in her eyes.

 A list of verbs.

The shadow in the distance blurred, shimmered and juddered.

 A list of adverbs.

I sat typing angrily, quickly and secretly at the computer.

A list of prepositions.

The car rushed through, over, across and under trees.

A list of pronouns.

The woman opened the letter wondering if it was from him, her or them.

 A list of words with the same prefix.

The inescapable, inevitable and indomitable secret haunted her as she walked in the room.

A list of words with the same suffix.  

The view created a hopeful, grateful and meaning feeling in the man.  

A list of similes.

The bird sat on the branch like a solider waiting for the signal, like a man frozen in time and like a statue.

A list of colours.

The trees yellow, sunburnt orange and vivid red leaves smothered the child’s view of the sun.

 A list of sounds.

The crunch of the glass echoed, repeated and boomed through the empty room.

 

I could go on and on. There are so many variables. Yet, we often neglect to teach students to experiment, steal and play with lists.  Students could also consider how many items they put in a list. Or they could consider the order that items go in lists.

 The beauty of lists is that they are not limited to just writing. Lists have a valuable benefit for analysis in English. They can highlight complexity and multiple meanings.

The article persuades, shocks and advises us of the dangers of smoking.

Looking at that one sentence, shows us that the student understands that the text has a number of purposes. If the student places those purposes in the order they occur in the text then student will be commenting on the structure of the text as well as the purpose of a text.  

 A list of the writer’s purpose / message.

Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ highlights how men view love, damage relationships easily and struggle to articulate and manage their feelings.

A list of the reader’s / audiences’ feelings.

The audience respects, idolises and fears Othello at the start of the play.   

 A list of words to describe the text/ character.  

Macbeth’s insecurity, naivety and inconsistency combine to fuel his downfall.

A list of techniques.  

The use of alliteration, words associated with pain and the word ‘danger’ combine to create a sense of fear as the poet expresses the reality of the soldier’s fate.

 

The humble, little and rarely used list has so much potential. Maybe, before we throw in a fancy term or a technique that only one Victorian poetess used on her deathbed when writing about the beauty of woodlice, we should consider the lovely, left out and little list.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Punctuate or not to punctuate

Here’s a simple question: When do you punctuate a piece of writing? Before, during or after the writing process.

I know, people are thinking: Duh! During the writing, of course. I think in punctuation, Chris. I live and breathe semi colons, mate. However, I think it is a bit more complex than that. Maybe a mixture of all three. Do we consider all three in how we teach writing? Or, do we focus on one more than the other?

People will know how I have obsessed over sentences. How I have revelled in teaching them. How I have explored and shared novel ways to structure a sentence. How I have taught students to develop writing by teaching an explicit structure. Most of the time, the punctuation in a sentence is mirrored in the writing the student has produced. The explicit teaching of sentence structures has helped students to see where punctuation goes. It has a comma after this word, so I must make sure it has it in my sentence.

Before

Primary schools have and have had the ‘Punctuation Pyramid’ and students, before they started writing, could see what piece of punctuation could get them in terms of a level. Move over commas – I want a sexy colon in my writing. This aspect of punctuation teaching I have always struggled with. The idea that all bright people use semi colons and colons is ludicrous. A systems for assessing writing based on single features is, in my opinion, flawed. It is simplifying the writing process without asking the important question: does the use of this punctuation change and improve the meaning of the sentence? All too often, punctuation is used in its basic form. How many times have I read a piece of writing with fifty exclamation marks in it? Ask the student why they used the equivalent of the GDP of small country’s worth of exclamation marks and you will usually get a blank face. We all know that an exclamation can shout, can shock and can impress something on us. But, teaching a student to use it just once, makes the shock even more effective. It can heighten a serious issue, or raise the tension. However, we tend to say: don’t forget to use a range of punctuation marks. What if we said one of the following things in our directions at the start of teaching?

Use just one exclamation mark to draw attention to the most shocking thing you are saying.

Use just one exclamation mark to highlight your disgust at an aspect you are writing about.

Use just one exclamation mark to raise the tension in the dialogue.

Use just one question mark to show sarcasm.

Use just one question mark to make the reader doubt what they are thinking.

Obviously, you can go to town on this and insist on three questions in a row to shock the reader. This, however, makes the writer clear about the explicit function of the punctuation and it avoids the meaningless spattering of punctuation like my neighbour has placed his Christmas lights on his house.

I seem to spend a lot of my time getting students to explain why something is used in a text. Maybe a narrow focus like this in teaching writing will help students to explain why other writers do things.

 

Recently I have been marking mock papers and two students had planned before writing. One of the used AFOREST – groan! The other used a list of punctuation marks and I like that one approach. The student in question ticked off the punctuation as she used them in her writing. But, isn’t that like the ‘Punctuation Pyramid’? Yes and no. Yes, it assumes there is an ideal pattern for excellent writing. Use all of these and you will be an A* student. No, because the student ticked off the punctuation as she used it. She only used a punctuation mark once and only once and not fifty times.    

 

Thanks for reading.

 Xris

Homework cheat!

Homework, I can’t stand it. It is one of the things in teaching I have always had a problem with. What to set? When to collect it? How should I mark it? Those are the questions I have before I have even set the work. Then, I have a new set of questions afterwards: Whose piece of work is this? Where did I put the work? Did Tom really hand the work it? Homework is never simple, but it often is seen as the measure of quality learning. Homework seems to be the ‘dipstick’ for measuring the quality of teaching. How much homework is set? Loads. Must be an excellent teacher or school.

Recently, my daughters’ school has increased the amount of homework my daughter have to do. They are in Year 1 and they have reading homework all the time. As parents, we do this regularly. A few months ago they started bringing spellings home to do. This all seemed logical: both developed a skill and reinforced the learning. But, last term we were given a termly project to do. I say ‘we’, but I mean my daughters. The project involved some maths, writing and some random tasks.  Reading – I can see the value of that. Spelling – yes, that’s logical. But, however, a whole term’s worth of activities for the girls to do was pushing things too far. As ever the dutiful parents, we complied. Week on week this project has become the bane of our lives. It is the primary albatross around our necks. It isn’t homework for the children; it is homework for the parents.

Surprisingly, I interact with my daughters and I do lots of things with them. Reading and spelling fits in nicely with how we do things. A few spare minutes here and there and we quickly do a small burst, but now the homework project makes me feel like a teacher at home. I am expected, by the teacher, to sit and complete tasks at home. I like teaching, but I don’t want to do it at home as well. I might correct a missing apostrophe on the wife’s calendar, but I do not get out a worksheet and lecture her on the use one. This homework project clearly stems from the headteacher’s desire to raise standards and levels. Clearly, his /her principle is based on the idea that working children twenty four hours in the day will improve results and character. (There is a whiff of Dickensian workhouse owner about the headteacher.) It might be their idea of independent learning. Or, it might be a social experiment to get parents to communicate with their offspring more. Sadly, it eats up the time when I could be reading books with them, making stuff and exploring interesting stuff that is at the bottom of the garden – the usually dad that I love.

So, ultimately, the question has to be asked: Who is the homework for? Ofsted. The teacher. The headteacher. The parents. The child. I have seen endless reams of worksheets for homework. I have seen students copying answers on the back of a bus. I have seen piles of homework that a teacher hasn’t known how to mark or what to do with them.  Homework is like the teaching equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes. We are all doing the same thing, but not too sure of the value. It ticks a box and it is a PR statement for the school, but what is the real value? Does it really support learning outside the classroom? Or, does it just please someone else? Or, is homework more homework for teachers?  

In my attempt to making homework meaningful for me and of value to the students, I have been experimenting with some homework strategies. They have been about making the homework have value.

1: The Mystery Homework

Description: You inform the class that there is homework due next week. The students have to hand in a piece of work. Explain to the class that you are not going to tell them what to bring, so they have to predict or guess what the work is. The work they submit becomes a display.

Value: Great for getting students to explore a topic. I gave this homework to a class of Year 7s studying poetry and these are some of the things they produced:

·         A poem they wrote.

·         An explanation of the history of poetry.

·         A detailed analysis of a poem a student found.

·         An illustrated poem.

·         A poem about mystery – the irony!

·         A poster. 

I did something like this before with another Year 7 class with Skellig and had drama sketches and comic strips.

The good thing about this is that it clearly shows a student’s level of engagement in the topic. And, it can be personalised to the student. I am genuinely surprised when they hand work in. Of course, we share their work with the rest of the class.

2: The Media Homework

Description: Ask student to create a scene or aspect of a text studied in the class. They can use whatever media format they wish to use. 

Value: A lot. I did this with Great Expectations and the results were brilliant. The students surprised me how they presented Pip’s first meeting with Miss Havisham. There were quite a few cameos from parents as Miss Havisham, which I think was a bit harsh on the mothers. Nonetheless, the results were informative and enlightening on how the students interpreted the scene. I even had one student create a minecraft thing – I know, showing my ignorance there. It looked good.  

3: The Sentence Booklet

Description: Make a booklet of a number of different sentence types and students craft three examples for possibly using in a future assessment. Every day or week they craft a different sentence.

Value: Massive. This I did for a controlled assessment and it work brilliantly. Often, the crafting of writing is neglected, but this allowed students to think and craft outside the classroom. They had to write three examples of each type of sentence for inclusion in their short story. They did this over several weeks. Each few days they had to do a different sentence. This homework lasted a whole term. Simple for a copy and paste activity.

4: The Analysis Booklet

Description: Print out pages from lots of different sources. Each week students are given a question to answer by analysing the text. Students only know the questions one week at a time.

Value: Good. I am currently studying ‘The Woman in Black’ ( I do teach other texts, I promise) and while we are reading that in class they are reading extracts from ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Great Expectations’, ‘Frankenstein’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. The discussions have been very fruitful.  Today we looked at how Dickens uses setting and compared it to Susan Hill’s use of setting. This allows me to develop their confidence at analysis, but also introduce some wider reading. Again, this booklet lasted the whole term. A extract a week.   

5: The Picture Homework

Description: Students have to find a picture that symbolises an aspect in a text. The picture is not to be a direct representation of the events in the text.

Value: Great. I must admit that I have borrowed this from a colleague, but it is a great idea. One student used a picture of a homeless person in London to make a link to Daisy Renton in ‘An Inspector Calls’.

6: The Shakespeare Homework

Description:  Create a booklet of tasks designed to make students think around a text. The tasks are to last no more than 5 minutes long.

Value: Good. I have always struggled with Shakespeare teaching as there is so much more I want to do with a play. I have loads of activities and not enough time to do them. Therefore, I collected all the activities and made a booklet out of them. This is a flavour of some of the activities:

·         Compare two covers of film versions of the play.

·         Translate an extract into modern English.

·         Compare two versions of Act 1 Scene 3 on Youtube.

·         Write a dream cast for the play.

·         Pick one scene and describe how a woman might view that scene differently to a man.

I could go on. But, the purpose of the booklet was so that students continued thinking about the play and ideas in the play long after we had finished the lesson. Yes, I could have asked them to complete a worksheet, but I felt that this was much more meaningful as students were thinking all the time.  

 

Oh, did I mention that none of these involved any marking. In fact, one student said the Shakespeare booklet helped her so much that she wish she had more booklets.  A booklet a term has meant that my planning has been reduced and I am never scrabbling for ideas for homework. The students are thinking outside the classroom and not leaving things at the door.  Of course, you could have marked the work, but why when a lot of the stuff I did was assessed in different ways. Verbally by me. Collectively by the class.  My students are not going to be convinced by a sticker or a stamp. I engaged with what they did, because they engaged in the topic in the first instance.

My book ‘Homework and all that other crap’ will be available in photocopied form in hardly any decent shops in the distant future. That’s if the dog hasn’t eaten it before then.

Thanks for reading,

Xris 

Death to sentence stems! Long live the sentence structures!

Before I start writing this blog, I need to thank Anne Williams and Kerry Pulleyn for allowing me to put these sentences on here. Plus, I need to thank all the other teachers who have added a sentence to this little project. This whole thing couldn’t have been done without their help. A big thank you from me!

Last year, I was inspired by Alan Peat and his great little book, ‘Writing Exciting Sentences’. He inspired me, and a lot of other people, with a very clear approach: teach students to write better by teaching explicit grammar structures and identifying different structures with a different name. I didn’t just blog about it once, but about several times. I was amazed at how much it transformed the writing of students for me. It gave some of my students the push above others in creativity and variety.

The problem with English is the misconception of what the subject is. Most people, outside education, think English teaching is simply about teaching about reading and writing skills. However, the more I teach, the more I realise it something more. For me at the moment, it is about teaching students to think. To solidify a thought. To develop an idea. To express a point of view. Aside, from the usual guff (necessary of course) of reminding students of proofreading, checking spelling and making work neat, I now ask students to show me their thinking in their writing. I want them to show me original thought and how clever they are. The autonomy of some aspects of teaching has meant that students are brilliant at repeating things parrot-fashion, but try to get them to come up with a thought of their own and it can be like searching for Wally in a party full of people dressed as  ‘Where’s Wally?’. It becomes hard to distinguish original thought with thoughts gained from others. For me, what makes an A* is somebody that has thought about something. In depth. In detail. Made their head hurts a bit with the thinking. And then a bit more.

The reason why I think David Didau’s ‘Slow Writing’ is so popular, and effective, is that it is based on the notion of crafting and thinking. When did writing become an autonomous process? Is technology to blame? Or, more importantly, when did we stop thinking when we write? This autonomy is at the heart of some aspects of literacy teaching. Yes, we want them to make some skills autonomous, like proofreading and making sure apostrophes are in the right place, but when did it become acceptable that all pieces of writing have AFOREST in them?

I was at a meeting for Heads of English this week. We were shown some examples from AQA of the writing questions on the Unit 1 exam paper – exciting stuff! Anyway, each one started with a rhetorical question. Yes, each one. Even the one with full marks. And the one with only a few marks. All of them blooming started with a rhetorical question. I was even tempted to start this blog with a rhetorical question; it is so infectious. But, where is the original thought? Where is the expression of a person’s ideas? It is writing like dot-to-dot. It makes ‘beige writing’. I want my students to be colourful. In fact, one student this week wrote my favourite opening to a question.


The question was a ultra-bland-exam-type question: write a persuasive magazine article persuading teenagers that eating healthy is important. 

He wrote: Young people are going to die.

I loved it because it was so simple but effective, and because it did not go anywhere near a rhetorical question. It showed me more thought in that one sentence than fifty questions put together. It was the right thing for doing the job at that moment.

Look at ‘sentence stems’. I like them. I use them. I teach around them, but they are quite limiting to the most able. They are limiting to the able as well. The writer shows…. The reader feels… The experiment shows… Will we ever progress to real thinking if we rely on these starting blocks of ideas? Don’t get me wrong: I think they are invaluable at times, but do we rely on them too much? Teaching other ways of expressing a thought is surely much better than a rigid form of writing? Look at an A* piece of writing and you will notice that they will use a range of structures in their writing and not just rely on the simple few obvious ones. They experiment and play around with the sentences. In fact, the only thing that is autonomous is their ability to vary and play around with ideas.      

So, what am I saying? Sorry – started with a rhetorical question: it is ‘really’ infectious. Sentence stems or openers should be lower down on our arsenal of tools to develop writing. The grammar structures we use should be paramount. The stems just help students to get going, but the sentence structures enable students to think and make concrete an idea or thought. I don’t want to be too negative about sentence stems, but they are the writing equivalent of a cloze exercise: writing by filling the gaps in. We want students to engage with the writing and the ideas. Filling the gaps is a nice starter, but it doesn’t have the meat and bones to develop things further.

Therefore, I am sharing the project with you to help other students think better in the classroom. The sentences below are from a variety of sources and they have been kindly been shared by other teachers. You can use them in a number of different ways

The sentences here can be taught explicitly as a starter or plenary. Or, the students could be given the sentence and they work out the structure on their own.

• Use as a poster for students to go to for inspiration.
• Print it out and stick on your desk and point to a sentence, when you want a student to include a particular structure.
• Print out and cut up sentences. Stick a sentence on a table and get students to move around a room and write a sentence at each table.  

We, Kerry, Anne and I, are aiming to create a resource for teachers to use when teaching writing in lessons. The teaching of sentence structure is often underrated by teachers and this document will hopefully address this issue.  We are searching for new and interesting sentences. As you find one, add it to our list. Variations on a theme are allowed.

Please feel free to add another one in the comments. Anne and Kerry will add some more sentences to their blogs at a later stage.  

Thanks for reading,

Xris

P.S. Please leave a sentence at the end.  

The Sentences

Comma sandwich : a sentence with an embedded clause (which is surrounded by commas).

The sun, which had been absent for days, shone steadily in the sky.

The more, more, more sentence

The more he worried, the more he felt uncomfortable, the more he wanted to leave the room.

The less, less, less sentence

The less I tried, the less I cared, the less I got.

Sentence, comma and list of verbs ending in –ing

The road unspooled on and on, rising, falling, rising, turning, falling.

A list of prepositions after a verb

I look outside, down, away, beneath, near the dazzling presents under the table

Comparative (-er), more, more sentence

Every day, Kitty felt smaller, more ugly, more useless.

Sentences with a semi-colon in the middle to connect two clauses.

Spider-Man was in trouble; he was surrounded by his enemies.

No but sentence

True, he had no calm, but she shattered whatever calm there was to look forward to in the future.

Three adjective ‘of’ sentence  

I felt full, full of food, full of bad television, full of incessant chat.

Colons to clarify

A strange hint of something filled his nostrils and made his stomach lurch: it was blood.

Two similes sentence

It could have been Esther’s, as black as jet, as dark as the night.

It’s hard to describe how I felt - like an object no longer of use, like a parcel packed up in string and brown paper.

Distance (closer, nearer, further) / More sentence

The further we went, the more anxious I felt.

The size, the (blank) sentence

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The doubting sentence (end with an if clause)  

I had finished the essay, if the teacher was happy with it.  

The three verb sentence

The monster pushed, crashed, smashed its way through.  

Not, nor, nor sentences

Nobody, not the postman, nor the housekeeper, nor Jim himself knew how the letter had got onto the doormat.

Fortunately / Unfortunately paired sentences    

Unfortunately, the door was locked. Fortunately, there was a catflap just big enough for him to fit through.

Start with a prepositional (position word - under, by, near, beneath, over) phrase

Under the moon, the river snaked its way to the sea.  

Never did... ,than...  

Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory in the quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the plane-tree together.

The writer’s aside sentence

The computer, as you know, is quite slow.

I think, to be honest, it will never work.

Two -ings at the start sentence

Raising a hand to my brow, shielding my eyes from the rain once more, I saw no monster.

So so sentence

There was one item, so small, so unrecognisable, it didn’t register.

Subject first sentence

Lamp posts and trees reared up at him, splintering his shins.

The Big Bad Because sentence

Because it was the last day of term, Martin felt relieved.

But none more than sentence

But none more than Tom would agree that smoking is bad for you.

Verb  -ed opening

Wracked with fear, Tommy crept slowly towards the door.

Scared for her life, Anna searched frantically for the key.

Whoever/ Whenever/ Whichever two of these...

Whoever had been at the scene, whenever they had been there, it was clear something very sinister had taken place.

x wasn’t/isn’t the word

Disgusting wasn’t the word. There were no words to describe what lay before her.

Riveting just isn’t the word. There’s nothing to say that can do this thing justice.

Adjectives at the start sentence

Cold and hungry, Martin waited for someone to take pity on him.

End loaded sentence - dramatic ending

After working every day of his life and saving lots of money for his retirement, Tom died suddenly.

Not only but also sentence

Not only was he cold, hungry and tired, but the chance of him being discovered would also increase.

The deliberation sentence

Sandwich, hot dog, salad - which would he choose?

‘It was’ semi colon ‘it was’ sentence

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Verb followed by detail sentence

He shrugged, heavy shouldered.

-ing clause before the main sentence

Having no choice about it, Chris decided to agree with her.

However after the first word sentence  

People, however, were watching gobsmacked

Second Conditional Sentence:  It’s still possible   If I were to......

If I were to win the lottery, I would buy a Lamborghini Gallardo.

Third Conditional Sentence :  Also known as the ‘Too late’ sentence   If I had.....  I would have.....

If I had left the house earlier, I would have been on time for registration

The ‘as if verb’ sentence

He pulled absently at some grass, as if searching for memories.

The as if and three verb sentence

It was as if the cold was pulling at Tansey, breaking her up, trying to take her away from them, back somewhere.

Three adjectives at the start sentence

Ruthless, dangerous, lethal, the animal leaps for its prey.

It was one of those, one of those when sentence

It was one of those days, one of those when the air was cold and crisp and the birds’ melodious singing pierced the air.

Almost, almost, when sentence

I was almost there, almost asleep, when I heard footsteps coming, then the sound of someone breathing close by.

One simile and three evers sentence

The silhouette standing on the hill, looking out, keeping watch like the North Star at night, ever present, ever caring, ever there.

Shakespearean I wish I was.... sentence  Would that I were....

Would that I were a glove upon that hand.

Repeat and develop ideas sentence

The teacher’s decision to set double homework was both surprising and distressing - surprising in that she had never set homework before, distressing in that it was to be completed in one day.

I did something twice sentence

I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960;and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

The Loose Sentence (an independent clause followed by a series of phrases)

It was a happy summer at the zoo, the zebras romping, the giraffes grazing, the elephants trumpeting, and the lure of a drippy popsicle on a hot day beckoning me to the snack bar.

The personification, 5 commas and 3 tos sentence:

Harsh white walls frown at the monotone uniformed prisoners, men with bleached faces and no eyes threaten, guns hoover, thunderously muted, waiting for someone to move, to think,

Start with a simile sentence

Like a ghost caught in a fan, he spun round and round on the roundabout.

Using dashes instead of brackets sentence

The roof - the straw thatch - was gone.

Or, and, or sentence

They flew in circles, or else there were many of them, and the whole group passed in and our of the light on their way to settle on a rooftop, or on some tree that asked to have its branches filled, at least until winter was as far away as it could be.

Without a, without a sentence

Without a how, without a why, Sid fell up towards the sky.