Sentence Combining for Voice + Greek/Latin Roots Part 2

Teacher writes 4 choppy sentences. Children offer ways to combine.

• Project 4 sentences
• Affirm combining moves
• Note: combining creates voice variety

Today you do two things: COMBINE short choppy sentences in your draft for voice variety, AND meet the FINAL 4 Greek/Latin roots. Sentence combining is the highest-leverage sentence-level revision move (Graham & Perin effect size 0.50). When your draft has 3+ short choppy sentences in a row, the voice feels monotone — even if each sentence is correct. Watch teacher combine 3 choppy sentences from a sample draft: ORIGINAL: 'Esperanza arrived. She was sad. She felt alone. She missed her father.' COMBINED with SUBORDINATOR: 'When Esperanza arrived, sad and alone, she missed her father.' COMBINED with PARTICIPLE: 'Arriving sad and alone, Esperanza missed her father.' Both combinations create rhythm and avoid the choppy march. Notice combining ALSO varies sentence beginnings — combining is doing TWO voice moves at once. Final 4 roots from MG-14: AQUA (Latin = water) — aquarium, aquatic, aqueduct. SOL (Latin = sun) — solar, solstice, parasol. LUN (Latin = moon) — lunar, lunatic, lunation. MULTI (Latin = many) — multiple, multitude, multimedia. Now you have 8 of 8 extension roots and 20 of 20 total roots (G5 full set).

• Notice: combining adds rhythm AND varies beginnings — two craft moves in one revision.

  model See narrative.

  prompt Teacher combines 3 choppy sentences from a child's draft into 1 combined sentence.

• When should a writer combine sentences?
• Name the root meaning 'water' and 1 example word.

M-5-S-GR-12-A Chart

11x17 chart: 3 choppy sentences shown on left; 2 combined versions on right (one with subordinator, one with participle). Annotations show the combining decisions. Print-ready, dyslexic-friendly font.

• Find 3 short choppy sentences in YOUR draft. Combine into 1 or 2 sentences using subordinator or participle. Mark with revision stamp.

  scaffold MG-13 + subordinator+participle reference card
• Use each of the 4 new roots (AQUA, SOL, LUN, MULTI) in a sentence about your literary essay (or invent a connection).

  scaffold MG-14 + root card deck
• Test yourself on ALL 20 roots (12 from fall + 8 from spring). Name an example word for each.

  scaffold Full roots reference wheel

M-5-S-VOC-12-B Chart

Reproduction of MG-14 at 11x17 with last 4 roots (AQUA, SOL, LUN, MULTI) highlighted yellow. Full 8-root extension wheel shown with example words. Print-ready, dyslexic-friendly font.

MG-14 Chart

Greek/Latin roots extension wheel (8 new roots, building on G5-fall's 12): wheel with 8 wedges. SPEC (Latin = look — spectator, inspect, perspective). VIS (Latin = see — visual, visible, vision). AUD (Latin = hear — audience, audio, audible). TERRA (Latin = earth — terrain, terrarium, territory). AQUA (Latin = water — aquarium, aquatic, aqueduct). SOL (Latin = sun — solar, solstice, parasol). LUN (Latin = moon — lunar, lunatic, lunation). MULTI (Latin = many — multiple, multitude, multimedia). Bottom rule: 'Combined with fall roots (bio, geo, photo, graph, scope, port, dict, scrib, struct, tele, auto, phon), you now know 20 roots.' Print-ready 11x17.

• Show your combined sentence (with annotation showing which 3 originals became 1).
• List 1 example word for each of 4 new roots.

• Star your combined sentence.

• At home tonight, find 3 choppy sentences in your home reading. Bring 1 combination idea.