Composition Interventions

As a student begins to produce sentences, it is important that he learns how to vary his sentence length, structure, and type. Sentence length refers to the notion that strong writing includes both short and long sentences. Sentence structure is the way the sentence is grammatically arranged (e.g., where the subject and verb occur in the sentence). Sentence type is how a student conveys ideas in his writing, including how a student combines ideas in his sentences, or whether he uses various types of punctuation to convey meaning (such as writing questions, statements, and exclamatory statements). These interventions can be used for a beginning writer who needs support in forming complete sentences, or with a more advanced writer who is learning how to make his writing interesting. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to support your students in this area. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains.

Explicit Instruction

If you are intervening to support your student's ability to vary sentence length, structure, and type, you should start by explicitly teaching the skill. This sounds like:

• Explain the Skill/Concept. Define varying sentence length, structure, and type, and explain the activity. ("Today we will be learning how to make our writing more interesting by varying our sentences. We can vary them in three different ways: when we vary the sentence length, we make our sentence shorter or longer. When we vary our sentence structure, we change the way we write the sentence, but adding additional ideas or changing the beginning or ending of the sentence. When we vary our sentence type, we use different punctuation to convey ideas." "Today we will practice skills we can use to vary our sentences." )
• Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about how to vary sentences. ("Here I have written a story: The bird is big. The bird is fast. The bird can fly. The bird has wings. I notice that I have four sentences that are all about the same length, and that all start the same way. If I vary my sentence length, I'll make some sentences longer and some shorter. The bird is big and fast. The bird can fly because it has wings. Now, I can change my sentence structure and start my sentences a different way, instead of always just saying 'the bird.' What if I say, "Do you know how big and fast the bird is? It can fly because it has wings. I've also changed my sentence type because I changed my punctuation. See how much more interesting my second group of sentences are than my first?")
• Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about the reader's experience when the sentence length, structure, and type don't vary. ("Now, listen to what I had written at first: The bird is big. The bird is fast. The bird can fly. The bird has wings. If you were reading my story, would that be interesting to you? No, it's boring when we don't vary our sentences.")
• Practice the Skill. Engage in one or more of the activities below to practice varying sentences. ("Now, let's practice varying sentence length, structure, and type in our own writing...")

Activity A: Sentence vs. Fragment
This intervention supports struggling writers who use incomplete sentences (i.e., fragments) in spoken language and in writing. Students requiring this level of intervention may communicate only partial thoughts.

Judith Hochman (2003), a leading expert in teaching basic writing skills, writes:

Sentence activities have two primary purposes. The first goal is to enable students to write compound and complex sentences rather than only simple, active, declarative forms. This will enhance reading comprehension (Maria, 1990). The second goal is to improve revision and editing skills, which benefit critical thinking skills. Students' awareness of grammar and the functions of the parts of speech are enhanced by emphasizing sentence structure and sentence activities (Scott, 2002).

In order to write longer compositions, struggling writers need to start here, at the sentence level. It should be noted that this strategy, as well as the one that follows, can be implemented both orally and in writing with equal success. Students often use fragments (incomplete sentences) in spoken language, and they do the same when they write. The teacher must explain that far more precision is necessary in writing than in speaking. Students should be able to identify fragments in a selection that is read aloud before attempting to correct them in their own work. When teachers write fragments, they should not be capitalized or punctuated.

Explain to the student that you will practice identifying complete sentences. Give the student a sentence and ask him to tell you if it is a complete thought.

Teacher: A sentence is a complete thought, with both a subject and a verb. Tell me if the words you hear are a complete sentence or not. Jane gave me her book.

Student: Sentence.

Teacher: into the forest

Student: Not a sentence.

Teacher: A fragment is part of a sentence. Change this fragment into a sentence: at night.

Student: The deer ran at night.

Sopris learning author Judith Hochman and teaching basic writing skills, an expository writing solution, recognized in the Atlantic magazine. (2012). India Banking News. 

Activity B: Sentence vs. Run-On
An additional extension of this activity is to have the student differentiate complete sentences from run-on sentences. This intervention supports struggling writers who use run-on sentences (i.e., complete sentences that are joined within appropriate punctuation) in spoken language and in writing. Just like in Sentence vs. Fragment, in order to write longer compositions, struggling writers need to start here, at the sentence level. Students should be able to identify run-ons in a selection that is read aloud before attempting to correct them in their own work.

Culham, R. (2003). 6 + 1 Traits of writing. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Activity C: Scrambled Sentences
This intervention supports struggling writers who have difficulty constructing a basic sentence. This type of struggling writer may mix up the order of his words or use improper punctuation. Scrambled Sentences provides students with all the parts of a complete sentence and asks them to build the sentence correctly. This strategy can also be used for beginning writers who are just learning the rules of sentence construction. Hochman explains that rearranging sequences of words into sentences and adding the correct punctuation and capitalization reinforces the concept of a sentence. Younger students may need to be given the first word of the sentence with the first letter capitalized.

Culham, R. (2003). 6 + 1 Traits of writing. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Activity D: CATS
This intervention supports writers who write simple compositions with little variation in sentence structure or type. This strategy also supports students in learning how to write dialogue. The following is an example from Mather, Wendling, and Roberts (2009):

The acronym CATS is a reminder to: copy, alter, transform, and supply. Prior to beginning the strategy, you would write three sentences with a space in between and then use the following steps:

C - Have the student copy a favorite sentence. If unable to copy, have the student trace the sentence with a yellow marker.

A - Help the student alter one word in the copied sentence

T - Have the student transform the sentence into a different form, such as turning a statement into a question.

S - Have the student supply the response to the transformation, such as answering the question.

Jlillis. (2017, February 28). 7 Steps to Teaching Writing Skills to Students with Disabilities. Brookes Blog. https://blog.brookespublishing.com/7-steps-to-teaching-writing-skills-to-students-with-disabilities/#:~:text=7%20Steps%20to%20Teaching%20Writing%20Skills%20to%20Students

Activity E: Sentence Expansion
This strategy can be used for struggling writers who need support with varying sentence type. Hochman (2009) writesthat "Sentence expansion encourages students to think about what the reader knows already or may need, or want, to know to better understand the students' writing. Using this approach, students are able to provide information with greater precision."

The objective of this strategy is to encourage students to write more complex sentences and elucidate their thinking. Mather, Wendling, & Roberts (2009) write that "Some students may benefit from practice with sentence expansion charts. These charts may be developed to illustrate a variety of sentence types. As a final step, students write the expanded sentence."

Hochman, J. C., Wexler, N., & Lemov, D. (2017). The writing revolution: A guide to advancing thinking through writing in all subjects and grades. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Activity F: Sentence Types
If your student struggles to vary the type of sentences in his writing, teach Sentence Types. In this activity, students learn about four types of sentences:

• Imperative/command. This type of sentence gives a direction: Go to your room.
• Interrogative/question. This type of sentence asks a question: How are you today?
• Exclamatory/exclamation. This type of sentence expresses excitement: I passed my exam!
• Declarative/statement. This type of sentence gives information: His car is red.

Bittman, E. (2014, September 30). TOPIC: English Language Arts, Technology Lesson Plans Teach Sentence Types Using Games and Technology. We Are Teachers. https://www.weareteachers.com/teach-sentence-types-using-games-and-technology/