Week 21: While home this week, build a compound-complex sentence and diagram it.

Hi moms and students,

Forgive me if I seemed harder on the kids than usual today to PLEASE be quiet while I'm talking -- it's the excitement of spring fever, I'm sure, that's eliciting so much conversation amongst themselves. I love them dearly -- they're so smart and thoughtful -- and I hate fussing, plus I'm glad they're happy in class. But I'd appreciate a reminder from mom at home not to talk while I'm speaking. We've got so much material to cover, and it gets tiresome talking over multiple voices.

Despite the chatter, we had an all-around great day. In EEL, we introduced compound-complex sentences. I chose to do this in three steps:

1. Start with a simple sentence.
2. Add another simple sentence and join the two with a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS).
3. Add a dependent clause that begins with either a subordinating conjunction (WWW.ASIA.B) or a relative pronoun (9Ws + T).

The kids handled these steps pretty well as long as we worked together. But when I asked them to create their own sentences and gave them one simple sentence with which to begin, they all tended to make the same mistake. Instead of combining two simple sentences that could each stand alone, they combined the same subject with two verbs, resulting in a compound verb but not a compound sentence. Most of them added a subordinate clause without fail, but a couple continued using coordinating conjunctions to just "add on" to their sentence.

Once we finally settled on a true compound-complex sentence, everyone did extremely well with diagramming. That was encouraging!

So, given classtime today, I'd encourage families to work on building those compound-complex sentences at home this week using the three steps above. Start simple, go compound, THEN change to complex. Continue asking them, "Is your coordinating conjunction joining words, phrases or clauses?" And, of course, it needs to be joining independent clauses rather than two dependent clauses. If it helps, you can even give them two simple sentences to join with a CC. Here are some ideas:

• The team scores. The crowd roars.
• Taxis swerve. Horns honk.
• Cake is good. Ice cream is better.
• The dog scratched. His owner bathed him.

Our IEW assignment is to write a creative essay from a prompt. Just so the kids understand, remind them they are NOT writing about Marco Polo. Marco Polo and his travels to Asia are the PROMPT from which their assignment stems. They are to pretend they are peasants from the Middle Ages who have traveled through time to the 21st century and back and are trying to describe to fellow peasants what the 21st century is like. Level A writes one paragraph; Level B writes three with an intro and clincher.

I've allotted two weeks for the assignment, so I think most everyone could complete Level B. See the lesson, which I distributed in class, for the details. You may want to help them (or at least check up on them) during the brainstorming process. But this should be a blast. I can't wait to read the final papers!

Let me know if you have questions. Have a stupendous week.

Erin