Lesson Plan 01 Complete Sentences and Fragments

7th Grade

What is a complete thought?

A complete thought is a person, place, thing, or idea that is in action.

We show complete thoughts through our use of complete sentences.

A complete sentence has the following items:

1. Subject
2. Verb
3. Sense
4. Capital letter
5. End mark

What is an incomplete thought?

An incomplete thought is when there are only a few of these needed items in a string of words. We
won't call it a sentence unless it has all of these items.

This string of words is called a fragment.

Let's figure out if these strings of words are sentences or fragments.

A. Samuel picks apples every day for his pet giraffe. Complete sentence
B. Elephants eat peanuts off the floor at my grandpa's house. Complete sentence
C. Running over my pie. Fragment
D. Frog that is blue and red. Fragment, could be a dependent clause
F. so many dogs in the parking lot Fragment, no capital letter, no end mark, no sense

Activity

Have the kids write down 3 complete sentences using their vocabulary words from their homework
assignment for that week.

Example word bank:

Flamboyant Gaudy Compassion Contempt Ascend Descend Defend Grieve

Then have the kids share their sentences and write their favorite one on the board. For the next class,
these will be put up on display in a funky story form.

Possible books used:

Shirley English Homeschool Edition, Level 7
Rod and Staff Publishing, Penmanship, Level 7