Books about Composing from Amazon.com

With the original publication of his sentence composing series, Don Killgallon changed the way thousands of high school English teachers and their students look at language, literature, and writing by focusing on the sentence. In this expanded series, Killgallon presents the same proven methodology but offers all-new writing exercises for middle school, high school, and college students.

Unlike traditional grammar books that emphasize sentence analysis, these worktexts asks students to imitate the sentence styles of professional writers, making the sentence composing process enjoyable and challenging. Killgallon teaches subliminally, nontechnicallythe ways real writers compose their sentences, the ways students subsequently intuit within their own writing.

Designed to produce sentence maturity and variety, the worktexts offer extensive practice in four sentence-manipulating techniques: sentence unscrambling, sentence imitating, sentence combining, and sentence expanding. It's demonstrably true that Sentence Composing can work anywhere--in any school, with any student.

Don and Jenny Killgallon's sentence-composing approach has transformed how writing is taught in thousands of language arts classes, helping students all across America become more proficient, sophisticated writers. Now the Killgallons use their highly effective method for a unique, powerful textbook that links good writing to that perennially difficult-to-teach subject - grammar.

Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence-Composing Approach gives your students the chance to absorb and replicate the grammatical structures used by some of the best writers of our times. Included among the over 150 authors, 200 titles, and 400 model sentences in Grammar for Middle School are award-winning young-adult literature such as Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming, popular favorites like J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, and curricular staples such as John Steinbeck's The Red Pony and The Pearl.

Fourteen grammatical structures are developed in the same predictable, understandable manner, using the sentence-composing approach. When students first encounter a tool, it is clearly defined and characterized. Then it's practiced through five activities: matching, unscrambling, combining, imitating, and expanding. Finally, a creative writing activity immerses students in the composition or revision of a paragraph through independent use of the sentence - composing tools they have already learned. Best of all, after each section, review activities - which can be easily graded as unit or final tests - offer opportunities for students to bring it all together and build better sentences.

An online teacher's guide accompanies Grammar for Middle School and includes advice, tips, resources, answer keys, and even curricular plans for teachers who are either new to the Killgallon approach or sentence-composing veterans.

No one can forge the link between grammar and writing like Don and Jenny Killgallon. Discover for yourself or rediscover how powerful the sentence - composing approach can be, and watch as your students get grammar like never before - and write better sentences too.

Composing A Civic Life promotes informed, active citizenship by encouraging the reader to write as a means of inquiry and civic participation

This text aims to help the reader to be better citizens of all their communities, not just in their knowledge, but in their ability to think critically, write effectively, and live wisely.

Citizenship, argumentation, research and community action

General Interest; Civic Writing

• learn a clear definition of its characteristics and function
• practice it through five guided sentence-composing activities
• deepen their understanding through an independent creative writing activity
• vary the tools through multiplying and combining them.

An online teacher's guide accompanies Grammar for High School and includes advice, tips, resources, answer keys, and even curricular plans for teachers who are either new to the Killgallon approach or sentence-composing veterans.

With the first edition of his book, Don Killgallon changed the way thousands of high school English teachers and their students look at language, literature, and writing by focusing on the sentence. In this revised edition, Killgallon presents the same proven methodology but offers all-new writing exercises designed specifically for the middle school student.

Unlike traditional grammar books that emphasize the parsing of sentences, this worktext asks students to imitate the sentence styles of professional writers, making the sentence composition process an enjoyable and challenging one. Killgallon teaches subliminally, nontechnically--the ways real writers compose their sentences, the ways students subsequently intuit within their own writing.

Designed to produce sentence maturity and variety, the worktext offers extensive practice in four sentence-manipulating techniques: sentence unscrambling, sentence imitating, sentence combining, and sentence expanding. All of the activities are based on model sentences written by widely respected authors. They are designed to teach students structures they should but seldom use. The rationale is that imitation and practice are as valuable in gaining competence and confidence in written language production as they are in oral language production.

Since the practices have proven successful for the great majority of students who have used them in all kinds of schools, it's demonstrably true that Sentence Composing can work anywhere--in any school, with any student.

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..
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