Category Archives: English Language Arts

We’re getting there! Here is the sixteenth lesson plan (of seventeen) from the Introduction to Writing Sentences unit. This one, as the title of this post heralds, seeks to assist students in developing their own understanding of composing the compound-complex sentence. This is, you probably won’t be surprised to hear, a complex lesson. It opens with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the compound-complex sentence. This is a full-page document with a two-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. As I frequently warn, and therefore do so emphatically this time, the two sentences in the text are, unsurprisingly, are compound-complex sentences. One of the reasons that I left this as a full-page document is that it will definitely need to be revised for emergent or struggling reader, or the student who uses English as a second language.

This scaffolded worksheet on writing compound-complex sentences. This is a bit clearer in its conveyance of the form and function of compound-complex sentences. Students and teachers will most likely benefit, in endeavoring to complete this work, from the use of this learning support on the basic structure of a compound-complex sentence as well as this one on the use of the semicolon in composition.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.