Twenty-three stimulating papers, includ­ing essays by Peter Elbow, Donald Murray, and William Strong, selected from the more than sixty presented at the Second Miami University Confer­ence on Sentence Combining and the Teaching of Writing. Sentence combining has not only sur­vived the paradigm shift in the teaching of writing but continues to stimulate provocative, creative thinking about the writing process itself. No longer an end in itself, but a tool, sentence combining has become a method of teaching about ways of thinking, of perceiving, and of organizing reality.

Following the success of their Sentence-Composing series and their Grammar: A Sentence-Composing Approach series, Don and Jenny Killgallon present a new series, Paragraphs: A Sentence-Composing Approach. Paragraphs for Middle School: A Sentence-Composing Approach gives students new tools to write mature and varied sentences through imitating models by authors like Louis Sachar, Suzanne Collins, Gary Paulsen, J. R. R. Tolkien, Carl Hiassen, Rick Riordan, J. K. Rowling, and many others. Now, in this worktext, the Killgallons take the approach a step further by teaching students tools authors use to build paragraphs. Using power tools in four places to build better sentences-the opener, the S-V split, the closer, and the mix-and four techniques for building better paragraphs-expanding paragraphs, imitating paragraphs, unscrambling paragraphs, and building paragraphs-students achieve a goal of good writing: elaboration. Through the activities in this book, students: imitate how their favorite authors build sentences and paragraphs eliminate common sentence boundary problems--fragments, run-ons, comma splices learn, practice, and use the tools that foster elaboration in paragraphs. With recognizable authors as their mentors, students build confidence as their writing becomes more meaningful and masterful. Teacher's Booklet -- guidance for teaching with this particular student worktext, including pacing suggestions and answer key FREE TEACHER'S BOOKLET (DOWNLOAD)

Don Killgallon's signature sentence composing approach to writing is rapidly becoming a part of every effective teacher's repertoire, in middle schools, high schools, and colleges across the country. Thousands of teachers have achieved astonishing results - with students readily writing sentences remarkably similar to those of professional writers. What's more they've discovered that this approach is easy to teach and easy to learn. Now, Don and Jenny Killgallon make these techniques available to elementary teachers with the first-ever worktext in which children learn to write sentences like their favorite authors. Using sentences from more than one hundred popular stories and novels as models, Sentence Composing for Elementary School offers extensive practice in four sentence-manipulating techniques: sentence unscrambling, sentence imitating, sentence combining, and sentence expanding. By playing with hundreds of sentences from selections like Charlotte's Web and the Harry Potter series, children learn to write their own sentences in more effective and interesting ways. At the same time, they improve their reading skills by discovering the story in the sentence. Teachers and students will find this textbook an innovative, creative, and enjoyable alternative to traditional grammar texts aimed at dissecting sentences. Instead, Sentence Composing for Elementary School engages children in learning how to build better sentences.

Unlike traditional grammar books that emphasize sentence analysis, this worktext asks students to imitate the sentence styles of professional writers, making the sentence composing process enjoyable and challenging.