All About Sentence Building
What are the benefits of learning about different types of sentences?
Certain sentence structures like compound and complex sentences allow you to convey information while showing the relationship between two or more ideas. Using these sentences intentionally can help you show complex ideas in a clear way.
You can control the pace of the writing by using different sentence types. When you use short sentences, you can emphasize certain ideas over others. When you repetitively use simple, short sentences, you can create a rhythm and build up the intensity by incorporating sentences of different lengths or complexity.
Learn about all of the different types to make your writing less boring and monotonous! One of the most important parts about writing is variety! Switch it up and alternate to making your writing more dynamic.
- Subject (Complete subject & simple subject)
- Predicate (Complete predicate & simple predicate)
- Incompete sentence
What makes a simple sentence?
A simple sentence is the “simplest” sentence to create. It involves a subject and a predicate. Most of the time, the subject comes in the beginning of the sentence and the predicate follows the subject. If you are missing one or the other, you have an incomplete sentence.
How is a complete subject/predicate different from a simple subject/predicate?
When you practice writing complete, simple sentences, you need to learn about the complete subject/predicate and simple subject/predicate. Think of it like this: a complete subject/predicate is all of the words required to form the subject/predicate. However, the simple subject/predicate is the most important word in the complete subject/predicate.
Let’s take a look at this sentence.
The student in the third grade learned how to write a sentence.
The complete subject includes all the words that make up the subject of the sentence. “The student in the third grade” is the complete subject. When you’re figuring out the simple subject, you have to be able to shave off the details from the exact noun that is essentially “doing” the verb. In the example sentence, “student”, would be the simple subject, not “third grade” and definitely not “in” or “the”.
The complete predicate uses the same logic. The complete predicate in the example sentence would be, “learned how to write a sentence.” However, the simple predicate would just be the action verb, “learned”.
When you combine the simple subject and the simple predicate, you get, “student learned”. You should have a somewhat clear idea about the meaning of the sentence by identifying the simple subject and the simple predicate. All of the layers and the details added into the sentence would create the complete “subject” and “predicate”.
Are all simple subjects and predicates one word?
Not necessarily. Sometimes you’ll have proper nouns as the simple subject.
Let’s take a deeper look.
The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776.
The complete subject: The Declaration of Independence
The simple subject: Declaration of Independence
The complete predicate: was written in 1776
The simple predicate: was written
You can see that the simple subject is more than one word. When the simple subject is a proper noun (a specific name of a noun) made up of more than one word, it is still counted as the simple subject.
Also, the simple predicate is two words. Both “was” and “written” are required to show the action in the sentence, so both of these words in the verb phrase are counted as the simple predicate.
How do I know if I have an incomplete sentence?
You have to meet three criterion when writing a complete, simple sentence.
- Do you have a subject? Think of the subject as the doer of the action.
- Do you have a predicate? What is happening in the sentence? What is being described in the sentence?
- Do you have a complete thought? Your sentence should be able to stand on its own, or be “independent”.
- Coordinating and correlative conjunctions
- Semicolons
- Conjunctive adverbs
- Run-on sentence
What makes a compound sentence?
A simple sentence has one independent idea. A compound sentence has at least two independent ideas joined by a coordinating conjunction. That means a compound sentence needs to have two subjects and two predicates. If the sentence appears to have a coordinating conjunction but only has one subject, that means that the sentence is still a simple sentence.
For example, “The cat was bathing, and the dog was sleeping” is a compound sentence. It joins two ideas with a coordinating conjunction.
However, if you look at the sentence, “the cat was bathing, and splashing water everywhere”, there is one subject: cat. Therefore, the sentence is actually not a compound sentence.
How many independent clauses do compound sentences have?
A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by one coordinating conjunction. An independent clause can stand on its own. It will still make sense. However, a dependent clause cannot stand on its own and will prompt further questions from the readers.
For example, “I have a fever” is a complete idea, so it is an independent clause.
On the other hand, “because I have a fever” is a dependent idea because it doesn’t make sense on its own.
Does a compound sentence need a comma?
Yes! Compound sentences require a comma. The comma acts as a separator between the two independent clauses that are joined. Don’t forget to place the comma before the coordinating conjunction.
- Subordinating conjunctions
- Independent clause
- Dependent clause
- Compound-complex sentence
What is a complex sentence?
If you’ve already learned what makes a simple sentence or a compound sentence, you’ve come to the right place. Think of complex sentences as the third level. It’s the most complicated one out of the three, but it’s not too difficult once you understand what’s required.
First, you need an independent clause and a dependent clause. The dependent clause needs to include a subordinating conjunction.
Do I need to use a comma for complex sentences?
Yes and no! It depends on the placement of your subordinating conjunction. If you start your complex sentence with a subordinating conjunction, you need a comma after the first dependent clause.
For example, “Because I had a fever, I skipped school” requires a comma after the word, “fever”.
If you begin your sentence with an independent clause, and you use a subordinating conjunction in the middle of your sentence, then you do not need to include a comma.
For example, “I skipped school because I had a fever” does not require any commas because the subordinating conjunction, “because” comes in the middle of the sentence.
Free downloadable resources for educational purposes only: Sentence writing
Use a short quiz below to test students’ knowledge about simple sentences, fragments, run-ons, compound sentences, subject & predicate, and coordinating conjunctions.
Use this worksheet to practice the conjunctions! When you practice using coordinating, correlative, and subordinating conjunctions, you can learn to write compound and complex sentences.
Visit twinkl.com for more resources: www.twinkl.com
This worksheet can help students practice with coordinating and subordinating conjunctions along with dependent clauses.
Students will learn how to punctuate correctly to avoid run-on sentences. Use this worksheet by www.easyteacherworksheets.com
Free downloadable resources for educational purposes only: Sentence building
Use this worksheet by Maria Judnick at San Jose State University. Practice transforming dull sentences into vibrant ones.
This packet, provided by the North Shore Community College, will allow students to learn and practice intermediate level sentence structure. There are explanations and examples to help you learn the concepts first before trying out the practice problems.
This packet allows you to practice various contents including sentence patterns, parts of speech, tense, voice, subject and verb agreement, and prepositions.
This packet is perfect for younger students who require repetition to start building good sentences. Visit EducationCity for more resources.
- Declarative sentence
- Interrogative sentence
- Imperative sentence
- Exclamatory sentence
What are the 4 types of sentences?
There are 4 different types of sentences: declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory. These terms may be difficult to memorize, but if you understand the meaning of the words, it’s easier to remember.
Declarative Sentence
Declarative sentence uses the word, “declare”. When you write a sentence that ends in a period and is a statement, it is a declarative sentence. For example, “I had a headache” or “The wall is caving in”, are declarative sentences.
Imperative Sentence
Imperative sentence uses the word, “imperative”, which means important. Think of this sentence as a sentene that instructs you to do something imperative. For example, “do your homework”, or “turn off the stove”. Imperative sentences end in a period.
Interrogative Sentence
Interrogative sentence uses the word, “interrogate”, which means to question. All questions are interrogative sentences. For example, “how is the weather?” or “Did you forget about the party?” are both interrogative sentences. Don’t forget to treat the question mark as an ending punctuation. That means that the word that comes after the question mark should be capitalized.
Exclamatory Sentence
Exclamatory sentence is pretty simple. Any sentence that ends in an exclamation mark is an exclamatory sentence. It shows emotion like surprise, excitement, or fear.
Free downloadable resources for educational purposes only: Sentence types
This writing activity will encourage students to have fun while practicing all sentence types.
The worksheet below is a basic paragraph organizer with easy transitional words and phrases, created by Janet Parody, a teacher and faculty at Landmark Outreach. Allow students to use the checklist at the end!
Click on the link to find more resources: https://www.landmarkoutreach.org/strategies/process-writing/
The worksheet below can be found in: https://teacherspondering.wordpress.com/
This packet can train students write organized, detailed, and interesting paragraphs.
This is a perfect worksheet to help students transform an acceptable, but boring paragraph into one that is improved! tremendously.
Allow students to make the examples better, and share their best revisions to each other. Students will be surprised to see how the same paragraph changed to each student’s writing style.