English Composition & Grammar: Learn Writing From The Greats.

Why are the sentences of great authors more interesting, more memorable than the sentences of most people? One big reason is that their sentences are not monotonously built alike. Great authors and not-so-great writers use the same grammar – just in different ways. A huge difference is in the way those authors build their sentences. Authors build their sentences in lots of different ways. The purpose of this course is to learn those ways by acquiring the grammatical tools of authors and using those tools to build better sentences. 

The activities in grammar books and classes—naming of sentence parts and parsing of sentences—dissect lifeless sentences. 

This course aims to do much more than name the tools. It teaches students to use those tools to build better sentences through the application of grammar to writing improvement, using rich sentences from literature as models, often from books read independently and loved by students.

Vast are the differences between sentences from many grammar books and sentences from literature books, a difference between artificial sentences concocted to illustrate subjects, verb, phrases, clauses (grammar books), and real sentences composed by effective writers to impact readers (literature books)—sentences like the hundreds of varied model sentences in this course. 

Sentence from works like:
Jurassic Park by Michal Crichton
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnette
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
and many more.

Students learn grammar, including varied sentence structure, by reading good books, picking up literary sentence patterns subconsciously through imitation—the same way they learned to speak. 

". . . one purpose of writing is the making of texts, very much the way one might make a chair or a cake. One way to learn how to make any- thing is to have a model, either for duplication or for triggering one’s own ideas."
—Miles Myers, former director, National Council of Teachers of English Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Composition 
 
During each class a different tool will be introduced – opening adjectives, infinitive phrases, adverb clauses etc. Then we will follow a four step process to practice the tool.

1.	UNSCRAMBLING TO IMITATE—Given a list of scrambled sentence parts of an imitation of a model sentence, students unscramble the list to match the structure of the model. Purpose: to break down the imitation task into manageable steps by isolating the sentence parts of the model. 
Example: (after introducing the appositive phrase)
In the model and scrambled list, identify the appositive phrase. Next, unscramble and write out the sentence parts to imitate the model. Finally, write your own imitation of the model and identify the appositive phrase.
Fudge, a portly little man in a long, pinstriped cloak, looked cold and exhausted. – J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
a.	Nora was a sickly grey-haired woman in a shabby blue blouse.
b.	She seemed surprised.
c.	But she was grateful.

2.	COMBINING TO IMITATE—Given a list of short sentences, students combine those sentences to match the structure of the model. Purpose: to convert sentences into sentence parts equivalent to those in the model and thereby imitate the structure of the model. 
Example:
In the model, identify the opening adjective. Next, combine the list of sentences to imitate the model (you may omit some words). Finally, write your own imitation of the model and identify the opening adjective. 
Curios, Captain Cook started walking round and round the tripod, until the             clothesline, the penguin, Mr. Popper and the tripod were all tangled up. – Richard and Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper’s Penguins
a.	Lewis was late
b.	Lewis began running faster and faster to homeroom class.
c.	This continued until something happened.
d.	What happened was that the vice principal, the hall duty teacher, and his homeroom teacher were all summoned there.

3.	IMITATING ALONE—After learning how to imitate a sentence, given just a model sentence, students imitate it by using their own content but the structure of the model. Purpose: to practice using structures found in professionally written sentences to internalize those structures for use independently. 
Example:
 Identify the opening adjectives in the models and sample imitations. Then choose one of the models and write an imitation of the entire sentence, one sentence part at a time.
1.	Cheerful and exuberant, he was the kind of fellow to slap a man on the back with a greeting.  Oscar Hijuelos, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien
2.	Numb of all feeling, empty as a shell, still he clung to life, and the hours droned by. Armstrong Sperry, Call It Courage
3.	Arrestingly handsome, George had dark blonde hair that cruised back from a part he kept just a nudge off center, as was the fashion. Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend 

4.	EXPANDING—Given a model sentence with a sentence part deleted at the caret mark (^), students create compatible content and structure to add. Purpose: to practice adding structures found in professionally written sentences. 
Example:
Below are sentences with the opening adjectives omitted at the caret mark (^). For each ^, add an opening adjective (word or phrase), blending your content and style with the rest of the sentence.
1.	^, now soaked all down her front, Tisha pushed onward.
                                  Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
2.	^, Roger sought a way out.
            Tom Wolfe, A Man in Fall
3.	^, they jumped first on Teft.
       Glendon Swartout, Bless the Beasts and the Children

Those are exact lessons from class, so use them as a guide to determine if the course is a good placement for your learner. They will practice with their own sentence/paragraphs at their developmental level. I don't feel it is "too easy" for any writer, but they need to be able to understand the grammar tools after I have presented them and shared examples. 



Within each student is an inborn capacity to learn by imitating others—in talking or walking, in choosing clothes or grooming hair, in hitting a tennis ball or throwing a baseball, and in composing sentences. Imitating professional model sentences is the foundation of the sentence-composing approach to sentence improvement. It is a bridge between the conversational sentences of students and the literary sentences of professional writers. Through imitation, students can learn to build sentences like J. K. Rowling, Maya Angelou, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King—or any author. 

Stylistic imitation is a perfectly honorable way to get started as a writer (and impossible to avoid, really; some sort of imitation marks each new stage of a writer’s development). . . . 
—Stephen King, On Writing 

The grammar tools we will focus on are listed below. What we cover on a given day will be learner led. The order does not build; learners may start at any time. I like to go back and review concepts, as I don't feel like learning something for 50 minutes and then not practicing it again is enough for a writer to actually add that tool to their writing repertoire, but I will not repeat the same exact lesson if anyone in the class has seen them before; I will use different examples and practice methods. 

Lessons:
Opening Adjective
Delayed Adjective
Opening Adverb
 Delayed Adverb
Absolute Phrase
Appositive Phrase
Prepositional Phrase
Participial Phrase
Gerund Phrase
Infinitive Phrase
Clause Types
Adjective Clause
Adverb Clause
Noun Clause

Learners may start this cycle at a time.