Pennington Publishing Blog

Some teachers would argue that a writer’s voice is so individualized that it must be discovered—much like finding the immunity idol on the CBS reality series, Survivor—an isolated and lonely search on a deserted island.

For the uninitiated, the immunity idol is a small, hidden object that fits with the theme of the Survivor location. It is hidden near the tribal camps, or in more recent seasons it has been hidden on Exile Island. If secured by a player, the immunity idol will prevent that contestant from hearing the host’s immortal words, “The tribe has spoken,” which removes the player from further competition.

Survivor players are banished to Exile Island by the other survivors. In fact, some contestants have been sent to the island multiple times. These Robinson Crusoes have no assistance from Fridays, but, with much effort and/or luck, are able to discover clues that will lead them to find the immunity idol.

Constructivists would argue that the only clues provided to developing writers should be widespread reading and unencumbered writing practice. After a journey of self-discovery, the squishy concept of voice may emerge some day for some writing survivors.

The debate hinges somewhat on our definitions of voice. Constructivists tend to adopt a narrow definition that voice is what makes one’s writing unique and personal; the intangibles that demonstrate an honest commitment to its writing.

I take a different view. I define voice a bit more globally, encompassing what old-time Strunkers called style, as well as point of view, tone, and diction (word choice). I think that discovering voice should be the result of a guided journey. By the way, the clues on Survivor are quite direct and relevant to the quest; they are not needles in haystacks.

As a reading specialist, I would agree that widespread reading does help students recognize voice; however, I would argue that for students to develop voice, they need to practice voice in specific teacher-directed writing assignments. Additionally, teachers need to help students practice different voices for different purposes. The voice that a student uses to convince a peer to do a favor, should not be the same voice that a student uses to convince a police officer to issue a warning, rather than a speeding ticket.

Here are a few suggestions to teach voice:

1. Read short passages from writers with diverse voices out loud. Have students identify characteristic diction and intonation (the sound of the writing). Hemingway, King, Jr., Rowling, Shakespeare, and passages from Isaiah are useful. Then, have students mimic the voices of these writers on a topic of teacher or student choice.
2. Have students practice manipulating the other elements of rhetorical stance (audience, purpose, and form) regularly. Rhetorical Stance Quick Writes, used as bell-ringers, are particularly useful.
3. Provide word lists, such as strong verbs and feeling words, for students to incorporate into their writing.
4. Teach students to use poetic elements, such as metaphor, in their narrative and personal writing.
5. Have students re-write endings of stories or news articles.
6. Have students re-write third person stories into first person stories.
7. Have students re-write fairy tales from another point of view, for example, from the wolf’s perspective, rather than that of the pig’s in Three Little Pigs.
8. Have students identify and re-write the tone of readings. Poetry is a great source for clearly-identifiable tone.
9. Teach different grammatical sentence openers. Encourage students to avoid “to-be” verbs.
10. Teach inappropriate writing style and post examples for future student reference. For example, post generic words such as stuff and things and help students brainstorm specific alternatives. Perhaps create a “dead-word or phrase cemetery on a bulletin board.
11. Have students write essays on controversial and relevant topics to identify divergent points of view, writer commitment to the topic, and sense of audience.
12. Post a “graffiti board” to encourage students to share their voices.
13. Have students read their own writing out loud and have their peers identify the elements I define as voice.

Find essay strategy worksheets, rhetorical stance quick writes, writing fluencies, sentence revision activities, remedial writing lessons, posters, and editing resources to differentiate essay writing instruction in Teaching Essay Strategies at www.penningtonpublishing.com. Absolutely the best resource to teach how to write a coherent essay.

Writing audience, diction, form, grammar, point of view, purpose, rhetorical stance, sentence variety, tone, usage, voice, writing style

Developing writers often have problems writing in complete sentences. Fragmented speech, such as “Catch you later,” and text messaging, such as POS RU GO-N? help to perpetuate this problem. Additionally, students lack understanding of sentence structure, such as the roles of subjects and predicates, phrases, and clauses. I have three suggestions for teaching complete and coherent sentence writing. They work remarkably well, use only a bit of “explicit” grammatical instruction, and teach grammar in the context of oral language and writing.

The first suggestion is a problem-solving approach that does require a bit of prior grammatical knowledge. Tell students to check on “completeness” by using these three proofreading steps: 1. Identify the subject (the “doer”) and the predicate (the action or state of being). To teach subjects and predicates, check out this helpful Subjects and Predicates article:

2. Re-think whether the sentence states a complete thought. To teach recognition of sentence fragments, check out this article on Sentence Fragments. To teach recognition of run-on sentences, check out Run-on Sentences. 3. Read the sentence out loud to ensure that the voice drops down at the end of a declarative, imperative, or exclamatory (up for interrogative). This last one connects with students’ oral language abilities and is especially powerful for your grammatically-challenged kids. Of course, students can force their voices down or up and inaccurately apply this strategy, so encourage natural reading-the out loud part is crucial.

The second suggestion is a sentence revision approach that will necessitate a bit of pre-teaching. Revising with different grammatical sentence openers builds sentence variety and coherence. Students will need a reference sheet, until the models become internalized. Here’s a good one: Grammatical Sentence Openers

For example, when students write “Going to school.” as a complete sentence, students could revise with a prepositional phrase grammatical sentence opener as “To school she is going.”

The third suggestion is “tried and true” sentence combining. Of course, this necessitates teaching phrases and clauses, but my seventh graders catch on quickly with lots of modeled practice. I use lots of sentence revision activities as warm-ups to teach sentence combining. Teaching Essay Strategies includes 64 Sentence Revision activities to improve the quality, variety, and writing style of student sentences.

For example, when students write “After he went to work, before running errands, and picking up fast-food for dinner.” as a complete sentence, students could revise with “After he went to work, he ran errands and picked up fast-food for dinner.”

Find essay strategy worksheets, writing fluencies, sentence revision activities, remedial writing lessons, posters, and editing resources to differentiate essay writing instruction in Teaching Essay Strategies at www.penningtonpublishing.com.

Writing complete sentences, independent clauses, sentence combinations, sentence fragments, sentence revision, sentence run-ons, sentence variety, writing coherence

One of the best ways to improve your writing style is to improve the variety of your sentence structures. Professional writers vary the subject-verb-object pattern with other grammatical sentence structures. A simple guideline for good sentence variety would be 50% subject-verb-object sentence openers and 50% other grammatical sentence opener forms. Try these sentence openers to add spice to your writing. Even more assistance with improving your writing style can even be found in online schooling. There are a variety of courses aimed to help your writing skills.

Prepositional Phrase

Start with a phrase beginning with one of these common prepositions to improve writing style:

aboard, about, above, according to, across, after, against, along, among, around, as, as to, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, but, by, despite, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, instead of, into, in place of, in spite of, like, near, next, of, off, on, onto, outside, out of, over, past, regardless of, since, than, through, throughout, to, toward, under, underneath, unlike, until, up, upon, with, within, without

Place a comma after a prepositional phrase sentence opener when a noun or pronoun follows.

Example

Behind the cabinet, he found the missing watch

Adjective

Start with a word or phrase that describes a proper noun, common noun, or pronoun with How Many? Which One? or What Kind? to improve writing style. Place a comma after an adjective or adjective phrase sentence opener.

Examples

Angry, the neighbor refused to leave.

Happy as always, the child played in the park.

Adverb

Start with a word that answers these questions: How? When? Where? or What Degree? to improve writing style. Many adverbs end in __ly. Usually place a comma after an adverb sentence opener if the adverb is emphasized.

Example

Everywhere, the flowers were blooming; quickly, the winter turned to spring.

Adverbial Clause

Start a dependent clause (a noun and verb that does not express a complete thought) with one of the following subordinating conjunctions to improve writing style:

after, although, as, as if, as long as, as much as, as soon as, as though, because, before, even if, even though, how, if, in order that, once, since, so that, than, that, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, wherever, whether, or while.

Place a comma after an adverbial clause that begins a sentence.

Example

Although better known for its winter activities, Lake Tahoe offers much during the summer.

__d, __ed, or __en Verbs

Start with a __d or __ed verb, acting as an adjective, when combined with a prepositional phrase, or an __en verb, when combined with an adverb to improve writing style. Usually place a comma after the sentence opener.

Examples

Frightened by the noise, I sat up straight in my bed.

Taken quickly, the pill did not dissolve for minutes.

To + Verb

Start with To and then add the base form of a verb to improve writing style. Add related words to create a phrase. Place a comma after the sentence opener, if a noun follows.

Examples

To smile takes great effort.

To play the game, Mark had to sign a contract.

__ing Verbs and Nouns

Start a phrase with an __ing word that acts as an adjective to improve writing style. Usually place a comma after the sentence opener. Start a phrase with an __ing word that serves as a noun. Usually do not place a comma after the sentence opener.

Examples

(Adjective)

Falling rapidly, the climber hopes the rope will hold.

(Noun)

Tasting the sauce makes them hungry for dinner.

Having Verbs and Nouns

Start a phrase with Having and then add a verb that ends in __d, __ed, or __en to serve as an adjective or a noun, referring to something that happened in the past to improve writing style. Usually place a comma after the sentence opener.

Example

(Adjective)

Having listened to his teacher, the student knew how to study.

(Noun)

Having learned all of the answers is helpful.

Noun Clause

Start with a group of words that acts as the subject of a sentence beginning with: How, However, What, Whatever, When, Whenever, Where, Wherever, Which, Whichever, Who, Whoever, or Whomever to improve writing style. Place a comma after the noun clause when used as a sentence opener if it does not serve as the subject of the sentence.

Example

However the students answered, the scores were marked wrong.

Nominative Absolute

Start with a possessive pronoun (my, mine, our, your, his, her, or their) followed by a verb with a  d, __ed, or __en ending to serve as a noun phrase that provides information, but no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence. A comma is placed at the end of the nominative absolute when it opens a sentence.

Example

His friends angry and frustrated, Paul promised to change his behavior

Find 42 sequenced writing strategy worksheets and quickly move students from simple three-word paragraphs to complex multi-paragraph essays. With 64 sentence revision lessons, additional remedial worksheets, writing fluency and skill lessons, posters, and editing resources, the teacher can differentiate instruction with no additional prep with Teaching Essay Strategies. Also, find whole-class diagnostic grammar and mechanics assessments, enabling 4th–12th grade teachers to differentiate instruction with 72 targeted worksheets in Teaching Grammar and Mechanics. The book has a full year of 15-minute sentence lifting lessons with standards-based mechanics, spelling, and grammar skills that teach all the conventions needed for successful writing.

Grammar/Mechanics, Writing essay strategies, grammar, sentence structure, sentence variety, writing strategies, writing style

More and more candidates for better paying jobs are now required to submit writing samples as part of the interview process. Many applicants with strong verbal skills fail to make the second round of interviews because of their poor writing samples. Frequently, the problems are not unity or coherence, or even inadequate vocabulary/word choice. All too often, poor writers are categorized as such because they only write in simple or compound sentences. A few tips on how to improve writing, using complex sentences will get you through to that second round of interviews.

A Few Definitions and Examples

A simple sentence has a noun (person, place, thing, or idea), a verb (mental or physical action or “to-be” verb—is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been), and the rest of the sentence (known as the complement).

Example: John ran down the street.

A compound sentence combines two simple sentences with a conjunction (a connecting word such as and, but, or so).

Example: John ran down the street, and he saw the crime take place.

A complex sentence has an independent clause and at least one dependent clause. An independent clause means that there is a noun and a verb that express a complete thought. A dependent (subordinate) clause means that there is a noun and a verb that do not express a complete thought.

Example:

Ty completed all his chores (independent clause) + after eating his lunch (dependent clause) = Ty completed all his chores after eating his lunch.

How to Form Complex Sentences

Complex sentences can help define the relationship between complicated ideas and will make your writing more specific and interesting to read. Learn how to improve writing by adding dependent clauses to the beginning, middle, or end of your simple or compound sentences. Oh, by the way, if starting a sentence with a dependent clause, always follow the clause with a comma.

Dependent Clauses

To improve writing, add adjective clauses, which describe nouns or pronouns. Transitions beginning adjective clauses include who, whose, on (for, of) whom to refer to people, that to refer to people or things, and which to refer only to things.

Example: whose work is well-known

To improve writing, add adverbial clauses, which describe describe an adjective, an adverb, or verb. Transitions beginning adverb clauses include after, although, as, as if, as long as, as much as, as soon as, as though, because, before, even if, how, if, in order that, once, since, so that, than, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, wherever, whether, and while.

Example: as long as she can wait

To improve writing, add noun clauses, which describe are used as a subject, a complement (the rest of the sentence besides the subject and predicate), or as the object of a preposition. Transitions beginning noun clauses include that, what, whatever, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, and whomever.

Example: whatever he demands

Find 42 sequenced writing strategy worksheets and quickly move students from simple three-word paragraphs to complex multi-paragraph essays. With 64 sentence revision lessons, additional remedial worksheets, writing fluency and skill lessons, posters, and editing resources, the teacher can differentiate instruction with no additional prep with Teaching Essay Strategies. Also, find whole-class diagnostic grammar and mechanics assessments, enabling 4th–12th grade teachers to differentiate instruction with 72 targeted worksheets in Teaching Grammar and Mechanics. The book has a full year of 15-minute sentence lifting lessons with standards-based mechanics, spelling, and grammar skills that teach all the conventions needed for successful writing.

Grammar/Mechanics, Writing essay strategies, grammar, sentence structure, sentence variety, subjects and predicates, writing strategies, writing style

Writing parallelism refers to the repeated usage of words and grammatical structures in a well-designed pattern. Parallel structures assist the comprehension of the reader and provide a memorable rhythm to the writing.

All good writing is structured and writing parallelism improves writing structure. The structure changes according to the domain of the writing, but when an author consistently follows a plan, the reader can clearly follow what the author intends to share or to prove.

Hints to Improve Writing Parallelism

Repeat key words throughout an essay to help the reader maintain focus. Use the same grammatical structures for phrases within lists, for example, verb endings. Repeated transitions can also produce interesting writing parallelism.

One of the greatest examples of writing parallelism in American literature is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

-Carefully read the address and then examine the phrases listed below to identify the writing parallelism Review the text to see how the parallel structures are repeated.

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground.

a new nation

conceived in liberty

we are engaged

so conceived

that nation

we can not dedicate

-Now, pick out the writing parallelism in the remainder of the text on your own.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth.

Find 42 sequenced writing strategy worksheets and quickly move students from simple three-word paragraphs to complex multi-paragraph essays. With 64 sentence revision lessons, additional remedial worksheets, writing fluency and skill lessons, posters, and editing resources, the teacher can differentiate instruction with no additional prep with Teaching Essay Strategies.

Writing essay, essay strategies, grammar, sentence structure, sentence variety, teaching strategies, teaching writing

Learning how to identify subjects and predicates will help students and employees comprehend sentences and avoid sentence fragments and run-ons in their writing.

Sentence Subjects

Definition: The simple subject is the common noun, proper noun, or pronoun that the verb acts upon. The subject is the “do-er” or the “be-er” of the sentence. It tells whom or what the sentence is about. When additional words help name or describe the simple subject, this is known as a complete subject.

Simple Subject

The girl liked to dance. (girl)

Complete Subject

The kind police officer helped at the accident. (kind police officer)

How to Identify Sentence Subjects

The simple subject is usually found at the start of a declarative sentence. To find the subject of the sentence, first identify any prepositional phrases and eliminate the nouns and pronouns found in these phrases from consideration. The subject of the sentence is not part of a prepositional phrase. Frequently, in imperative sentences, the simple subject, “you,” is implied (suggested, not stated).

Sentence Predicates

Definition: The simple predicate is the verb that acts upon the subject of the sentence. It does the work of the “do-er” or the “be-er” of the sentence. The simple predicate shows a physical or mental action or it describes a state of being. When additional words help describe the simple predicate, this is known as a complete predicate. The complete predicate consists of the rest of the sentence other than the subject.

Simple Predicates

He thought of an idea. (thought)

She was a nice lady. (was)

An angry man tried to run me off the road. (tried)

Complete Predicate

He always thought of an idea. (always thought of an idea)

She was a nice lady. (was a nice lady)

An angry man tried to run me off the road. (tried to run me off the road)

How to Identify Sentence Predicates

To find the predicate, first identify the subject and ask “What?” The answer to this question should be the predicate. The predicate usually follows the subject in a sentence. However, it can be placed before the subject in a question (Was it your mother’s purse?), in an implied (suggested, not stated) sentence (Look out!), or in a phrase or clause at the beginning of a sentence to add special emphasis (Even more interesting was the fact that she knew it would probably rain).

Find 42 sequenced writing strategy worksheets and quickly move students from simple three-word paragraphs to complex multi-paragraph essays. With 64 sentence revision lessons, additional remedial worksheets, writing fluency and skill lessons, posters, and editing resources, the teacher can differentiate instruction with no additional prep with Teaching Essay Strategies. Also, find whole-class diagnostic grammar and mechanics assessments, enabling 4th–12th grade teachers to differentiate instruction with 72 targeted worksheets in Teaching Grammar and Mechanics. The book has a full year of 15-minute sentence lifting lessons with standards-based mechanics, spelling, and grammar skills that teach all the conventions needed for successful writing.

Grammar/Mechanics, Writing complete sentences, fragments, grammar, run-ons, sentence structure, sentence variety, subjects and predicates, teaching strategies, teaching writing