COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Goal: For students to demonstrate their developed understandings of simple, compound, and complex sentences structures and the associated punctuation by creating grammatically correct compound-complex sentence formulas and writing appropriate sentences for each

Before introducing compound-complex sentences, review:

• Use a coordinate conjunction or a semicolon to join sentences that could make sense on their own.

o I,cI = could be 2 sentences o I;I = could be 2 sentences

• Clauses (subject/predicate) that begin with a subordinate conjunction create a dependent clause that needs an independent clause to make sense.

o D,I = one complete sentence o ID = one complete sentence

Compound-complex sentences contain more than two clauses. Apply prior knowledge to construct understanding of compound-complex sentence structures.

• Take 2 independent clauses and 1 dependent clause and combine them to create 8 different formulas.

• Hint: identify the I the D is dependent on before deciding where to add the correct punctuation.

ID;I ID,cI I;D,I

I,cD,I I,cID I;ID

D,I,cI D,I;I

• Write sentences to match the formulas.

As students become experts, challenge them occasionally with a compound-complex formula and have them add punctuation, write the sentence, identify the parts, and check eachothers’ work.