S

Simple Sentences

What do you notice?

My hair wakes up stupid.- Tony Johnson, Any Small Goodness (2003)

What do you notice?

My sweat smells like peanut butter.

-Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (2006)

Is it a sentence?

Ask 2 questions:

Who or what did or is something? (subject)

What are they or what did they do? (verb)

Is it or Isn’t it?Sentence or poser?

He paced.

And mosquitos.

Stacy gasped.

Eric stirred.

And gnats.

Another corpse.

Jeff shrugged.

Amy turned.

To look.

Jeff nodded.

Jeff sighed. - Scott Smith, The Ruins (2006)

Is it or Isn’t it?

Ingrid nodded.

Ingrid awoke.

Ingrid knew.

- Peter Abrahams, Down the Rabbit Hole (2006)

Crawley frowned.

- Neal Shusterman, The Schwa Was Here (2006)

Sports

A player passes.

The ball flies

Girls holler.

Cameras click.

An agent approaches.

Try it!

Think about your exemplification essay.

Write 5 two-word sentences with powerful or lively verbs.

What do you notice?

He started with his bookshelf. He pulled out four or five volumes from his encyclopedia and threw them on the floor. Then he tossed out a couple of comic books and a National Geographic. He opened every drawer in his dresser. He flipped out stuff from each one—socks, underwear, shirts. They landed all over. He kicked the wastebasket over. He dragged his dirty clothes hamper from the closet and dumped it on the floor. He charged into his desk. Pencils and papers and rubber bands went flying. About the only think he didn’t do was spit. By now, you could hardly see the floor. He stood in the middle, turning, nodding, smiling. “Yeah. Now it’s my room.” And he wasn’t done. We ordered a pizza, and when he got down to the crust of each slice, he tossed it over his shoulder. One landed in his underwear drawer. The pizza box he flipped like a Frisbee against the wall.- Jerry Spinelli, Fourth Grade Rats (1991)

What do you notice?

Getting punched hard in the face is a singular experience.

- Pete Hautman, Godless (2004)

What did you read & learn about:

Simple sentences?

Run-ons?

Fragments?

What do you notice?

A Hawk landing on a gray stone near to me.

It stares at me with its sharp eyes, but I’m not afraid of it at all.

What do you notice?

As I left my house at eleven pm, I was going towards a place I’ve never been before.

The first time I have felt the warm sand in between my toes.

What do you notice?

No time to stop and think until I notice the sunlight coming in the barn from outside, I start to relax.

Hearing my horse breathing and making noises with his lips sounding like a car motor.

What do you notice?

Although the sun was beaming, the weather was perfect and had a mellow breeze that whirled across my face.

As I took a look around I observed the sky-high, jagged, brown palm trees, which swayed from left to right.

What do you notice?

Watching the clear blue ocean waves crash down along the shore.

The constant sound of the ball hitting the floor, or the swoosh sound the net makes when the ball goes perfectly through it are like gentle rhythms that float through my ears.

What do you notice?

It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea. A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water, and the word for Breakfast Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand seagulls came to dodge and fight for bits of food. It was another busy day beginning. But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was practising. A hundred feet in the sky he lowered his webbed feet, lifted his beak, and strained to hold a painful hard twisting curve through his wings. The curve meant that he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was a whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him. He narrowed his eyes in fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one … single … more … inch … of … curve … Then his feathers ruffled, he stalled and fell. Seagulls, as you know, never falter, never stall. To stall in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonour. But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings again in that trembling hard curve – slowing, slowing, and stalling once more – was no ordinary bird.

- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)