Sentence Fragments

Instructions: Number a separate piece of paper from 1 to 25. Then, using S for sentence
and FRAG for Fragment, identify each of the following word groups as either a Sentence
or a Fragment. Finally, rewrite the passage, correcting all of the sentence fragments in
any of the ways discussed in class.

Why Are Students Turned Off? by Casey Banas

1. Ellen Glanz lied to her teacher. 2. About why she hadn’t done her homework. 3. But,
of course, many students have lied to their teachers. 4. The difference is that Ellen Glanz
was a twenty-eight-year-old high school social studies teacher. 5. Who was a student for
six months. 6. To improve her teaching by gaining a fresh perspective of her school.

7. She found many classes boring. 8. Students doing as little as necessary to pass tests
and get good grades, using ruses to avoid assignments, and manipulating teachers to do
the work for them. 9. She concluded that many students are turned off. 10. Because they
have little power and responsibility for their own education.

10. Ellen Glanz found herself doing the same things as the students. 11. There was the
day when Glanz wanted to join her husband. 12. Helping friends celebrate the purchase
of a house. 13. But she had homework for a math class. 14. For the first time, she knew
how teenagers feel. 15. When they think something is more important than homework.

16. She found a way out and confided: “I considered my options: Confess openly to the
teacher, copy someone else’s sheet, or make up an excuse.” 17. Glanz chose the third
option. 18. The one most widely used. 19. And told the teacher that the pages needed to
complete the assignment had been ripped from the book. 20. The teacher accepted the
story, never checking the book. 21. In class, nobody else did the homework; and student
after student mumbled responses when called upon.

22. “Finally,” Glanz said, “the teacher, thinking that the assignment must have been
difficult, went over each question at the board. 23. While students copied the problems at
their seats. 24. The teacher had ‘covered’ the material and the students had listened to the
explanation. 25. But had anything been learned?”

Banas, Casey. “Why Are Students Turned Off?” College Writing Skills with Readings, 7 ed. Ed. John Langan.
Boston: McGraw Hill, 2005. 657-59.