Getting Started with Elementary School Sentence Composing: A Student Worktext

“Sentence composing provides acrobatic training in sentence dexterity. It uses literature as a writing school with a faculty of professional writers who virtually teach students to build better sentences.” - Don and Jenny Killgallon

Getting Started with Elementary School Sentence Composing  introduces the powerful Sentence-Composing approach at a perfect time ― elementary school ― to give students a strong foundation in writing. Using real sentences by authors as models, the approach provides practice with four tools that skilled writers use to build strong sentences:

• Openers to vary sentence beginnings
• Splits to vary sentence middles
• Closers to vary sentence endings
• Mixes to add details in two or three places 

Along the way, Don and Jenny Killgallon provide support for students, including:

• Basic sentence training – activities to understand subjects, predicates, and their roles in sentence building 
• Broken sentences – exercises to identify, repair, and avoid fragments
• Vocabulary scaffolds – “quickshots” to include an immediate, clear definition in context for challenging words

Don Killgallon is the originator of the sentence-composing approach and author of numerous sentence-composing worktexts. He is the author or coauthor of Paragraphs for Middle School (2013), Paragraphs for High School (2012), Grammar for College Writing (2010), Story Grammar for Elementary School (2008), Grammar for High School (2007), Grammar for Middle School (2006), Sentence Composing for Elementary School (2000), Sentence Composing for High School (1998), Sentence Composing for College (1998), Sentence Composing for Middle School (1997), and Daily Sentence Composing (Great Source). He currently co-teaches with Jenny Killgallon in the Odyssey Program of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

Jenny Killgallon is coauthor of Paragraphs for Middle School (2013), Paragraphs for High School (2012), Grammar for College Writing (2010), Story Grammar for Elementary School (2008), Grammar for High School (2007), Grammar for Middle School (2006), Sentence Composing for Elementary School (2000), and Daily Sentence Composing (Great Source).  She currently co-teaches with Don Killgallon in the Odyssey Program of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.