Teaching page · Grade 1 · Lesson 30

Copy a sentence worth copying

Some nouns name things you can touch. Others name ideas — and those are the ones writers need.

What it is

Copying a sentence exactly is not busywork. When your hand makes the shape of a good sentence, the shape starts to be available to you when you write your own. Exactly means exactly: the capital, every comma, the spacing, the period. What you are practicing is noticing, and a copied sentence with a comma missing means you did not see the comma.

Watch it built

1
Choose one sentence from the page you would be pleased to have written.
The wind had been rising all evening, and by dark it was loud.
2
Copy the first half, checking the capital and every mark as you go.
The wind had been rising all evening,
3
Copy the rest, then read yours against the book once, mark by mark.
The wind had been rising all evening, and by dark it was loud.
Remember
Exactly means exactly — every capital, every comma, the period.
Ask yourself: “Does my sentence still make sense without the word?”

Remember

The word must do work in the sentence.

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