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oppy sentences. Combine some of 
the sentences to increase the unity and coherence of the paragraphs. It may be necessary to 
ome of the sentences; use coherence devices, and perhaps even rearrange the 
sentences. 
ack of my money. I have to be careful how much I spend. If my decisions are 
th
some writing assignments as "p
p
process and you can set higher standards for their output. You might then ask them to use their greater 
writing skill to return to the earlier practice compositions and revise them. 
 E
ercises for beginning writers should build on material which is already familiar 
phase should contain a lot of ora work and the ac
ntrolled in various ways. Here ar some suggestio
b
• Have students dictate the first part of a story. After three or four sentences have been dictated, give the 
students the story to complete independently in writing. 
the cartoons.
• Have students invent and act out brief social exchanges: asking directions, making a purchase in a 
store, greeting someone in the street, ordering food at a snack bar. Then have them write these in 
dialogue form. 
[Carol N. Dixon and Denise Nessel. Language Experience Approa
If you are teaching beginners, you may 
y
encouraging s
w
Expanded writing skills require students to produce longer and more complex sentences. For thi
m
tences into a single more complex sentence. For exa
ich the student is to combine by making one sentence into a re
e noun in the other sentence. 
History
This type of exercise can be quite helpful, but you should be aware of its limitations. The focus here is more 
on the grammatical form of the sentences than on the way sentences are strung together to form a 
discourse. For this reason, students should also sometimes do sentence combining exercises within the 
context of a whole paragraph, as in the following example.