LITTLE SENTENCES IN THE SPRING

My 9th grade students have been working all year to bring better length to some of their sentences, but now, as the slowly- warming days of spring send a feeling of simplicity to some of us, I’m asking the students to take on short sentences as a focus in their essays. They’re beautiful things, those short sentences in the midst of graceful long ones, and they’re easy to write. Subject, verb, a few ornaments – that’s all it takes. It’s like placing the smallest Easter eggs in the grass among mighty trees, or scattering a few silver dollars around a teen’s room, just for love’s sake. It’s so easy. It’s fun, too.