This exercise will make your children’s writing more interesting by helping them to understand the importance of: 1. Adding detail to sentences 2. Eliminating patterns in sentence structure

As writers, your children have two jobs. The first is to give their readers information. The second is to entertain their readers, or at least make their writing interesting. This assignment is designed to give your children practice in making what they write more interesting than it would be if they were to use it just to pass on information. The following sentence is all that is needed to pass on the information that a very old man was mad:

The old man was mad.

If we were to make that sentence more interesting, we’d have to add to that basic piece of information. There would have to be descriptions that would let our reader see the mad old man. Watch what happens to that sentence when we add detail about how the old man acts when he’s mad:

1. The old man was so mad he couldn’t speak; he just jumped up and down in one spot.

Watch what happens when we add detail about why the old man was mad:

When the old man woke up and found his bridge was gone, he was so mad he couldn’t speak; he just jumped up and down in one spot.

We have given our reader an idea about how the old man feels about his bridge being gone and how he acts. Now see what happens when we add detail about why he feels so strongly about his bridge:

The old man was homeless and lived under the bridge and called it his home, so, when he woke up and found his bridge gone, he was so mad he couldn’t speak; he just jumped up and down in one spot.

Let’s add one more bit of information to this sentence. Let’s add who’s watching him and see what that does:

Bill watched the old man who lived under the bridge wake up and find his home gone, which had made the old man so mad he couldn’t speak; he just jumped up and down in one spot.

After you have read the above examples with and to your children, it will be their turn to learn to do this. Here’s some more basic information in sentence form.

The old man lost his bridge.

Your children’s job is to give their readers this information, but in a way that makes it interesting.

1. Have them add the reason the old man lost his bridge.

2. Have them add the length of time the old man had to be without his bridge.

Now they should write their own short sentences that give their readers nothing but basic information. Then they should write them two more times and add new details each time. When trying to think about what interesting details to add, they should think of how, why, when, and where.

Now, if they’ve found they can write a sentence that’s interesting, they should also learn how to write a number of sentences and not have them all sound alike. This is an important skill that even many adult writers never acquire. Writers sometimes create patterns with their sentences by starting them all in the same way. Listen to how this sounds:

Bill saw the old man standing in the stream. Bill asked him why he was standing there. The old man said he was looking for his bridge. Bill thought this was strange. He asked the old man, “How did you lose your bridge?”

The old man answered, “When I went to sleep it was over me, and when I woke up it was gone. “

Bill looked closely but could not see anything that looked like part of a bridge.

All of these sentences begin with a subject which is followed immediately by a verb. This is pretty boring reading, even when the subject’s interesting. Read them and their rewritten version with and to your children so they can and see and hear how much better they sound when the subject-verb pattern is broken:

When he looked toward the stream, Bill saw the old man standing in the water. Bill asked him why he was standing there. The old man, looking up and down the stream, said that he was looking for his bridge. Bill thought this was strange. ?How did you lose your bridge?? he asked.

?When I went to sleep, ? the old man answered, ?it was over me, and when I woke up it was gone. ?

Even when he looked closely, Bill could not see anything that looked like part of a bridge.

Your children should recognize that the subject-verb pattern of the sentence structuring in the second version of that passage has been broken. This gives the writing variety. Your children can do this as easily as any author. All they have to do is look at what they’ve written and change the structuring of their sentences.

Here’s another example of how variety can be put into sentences. Notice that each of the following sentences contains the same information. It’s the structuring of the sentences that’s different.

1. Bill saw a field of blue flowers, and, in the center of this large area, there

was an old bridge.

2. In the center of a large field of blue flowers, Bill saw an old bridge. 3. In front of Bill an old bridge rose over a large field of blue flowers. 4. Blue flowers covered the large field in front of Bill, and in the very center was an old bridge.

5. An old hedge rose from the large field of blue flowers that lay before Bill.

Your children should write the next sentence in five different ways, changing the structure of the sentence each time.

Bill walked back to the stream to tell the old man that he might have found his bridge for him.

Give your children a group of sentences and their job will be to make them interesting by adding detail and by making sure there are no repetitions or patterns in the structuring of them. You can make up your own sentences for them to work with or continue to use my examples.

1. Bill found the old man by the stream.
2. Bill told the old man that he might know where his bridge is. 3. The old man said he would give Bill anything to get the bridge back. 4. Bill thought this would be a good way to get the old man to eat a good dinner. 5. The old man agreed to eat a good dinner if Bill got his bridge back for him.

To be sure your children have understood and can utilize this skill, have them revise some writing they have done in the past. Have them add detail to their sentences and remove the patterns from them.


Dave Marks is the author of the popular Writing Strands program. Contact him by calling 800-688-5375 or visit his website at: www.writingstrands.com for more information on all of his publications.