The document provides excerpts from various young adult and children's books that demonstrate examples of simple sentences, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and complete sentences. It then asks the reader questions about what they noticed in the examples and what they learned about different sentence types. Additional excerpts are provided that demonstrate descriptive, place-based simple sentences. The final excerpt is the opening paragraph from Jonathan Livingston Seagull, describing Jonathan practicing a difficult wing maneuver while other seagulls forage for food in the morning.

1. S
Simple Sentences

2. What do you notice?
My hair wakes up stupid.
- Tony Johnson, Any Small Goodness (2003)

3. What do you notice?
My sweat smells like peanut butter.
-Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
(2006)

4. Is it a sentence?
Ask 2 questions:
Who or what did or is something? (subject)
What are they or what did they do? (verb)

5. Is it or Isn’t it?
Sentence or poser?
He paced.
And mosquitos.
Stacy gasped.
Eric stirred.
And gnats.
Another corpse.
Jeff shrugged.
Amy turned.
To look.
Jeff nodded.
Jeff sighed.
- Scott Smith, The Ruins
(2006)

6. Is it or Isn’t it?
Ingrid nodded.
Ingrid awoke.
Ingrid knew.
- Peter Abrahams, Down the Rabbit Hole (2006)
Crawley frowned.
- Neal Shusterman, The Schwa Was Here (2006)

7. Sports
A player passes.
The ball flies
Girls holler.
Cameras click.
An agent approaches.

8. Try it!
S Think about your exemplification
essay.
S Write 5 two-word sentences with
powerful or lively verbs.

9. What do you notice?
He started with his bookshelf. He pulled out four or five volumes
from his encyclopedia and threw them on the floor. Then he tossed out
a couple of comic books and a National Geographic.
He opened every drawer in his dresser. He flipped out stuff from
each one—socks, underwear, shirts. They landed all over. He kicked
the wastebasket over. He dragged his dirty clothes hamper from the
closet and dumped it on the floor. He charged into his desk. Pencils
and papers and rubber bands went flying. About the only think he didn’t
do was spit.
By now, you could hardly see the floor. He stood in the middle,
turning, nodding, smiling. ―Yeah. Now it’s my room.‖
And he wasn’t done. We ordered a pizza, and when he got down to
the crust of each slice, he tossed it over his shoulder. One landed in his
underwear drawer. The pizza box he flipped like a Frisbee against the
wall.

10. What do you notice?
Getting punched hard in the face is a
singular experience.
- Pete Hautman, Godless (2004)

11. What did you read & learn
about:
S Simple sentences?
S Run-ons?
S Fragments?

12. What do you notice?
S No parents, no neighbors and most
importantly no cops.
S You could drive around for hours before
you wound up in the same spot again.

13. What do you notice?
S I can only hope to visit again and watch
the beautiful amber sunset on the
perfectly calm unobscured bay horizon.
S Tall stone walls, with Tuscan style roof,
located right on the water.

14. What do you notice?
S On the stove there is always something
cooking, I can smell it while sitting at
the table talking and laughing with
Judy.
S Across the table are stacks of papers,
magazines, and laptops.

15. What do you notice?
S Being away from the crazy life and
world I live in, calms me down as I
ponder.
S I feel my body become numb, nothing
is crossing my mind, I sit there with no
worries.

16. What do you notice?
S The rain is never ending but so
peaceful and quiet.
S There’s trees everywhere, it’s green all
over nothing but fresh air and open
land.

17. What do you notice?
It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.
A mile from shore a fishing boat chummed the water, and the word for Breakfast
Flock flashed through the air, till a crowd of a thousand seagulls came to dodge and
fight for bits of food. It was another busy day beginning.
But way off alone, out by himself beyond boat and shore, Jonathan Livingston
Seagull was practising. A hundred feet in the sky he lowered his webbed feet, lifted
his beak, and strained to hold a painful hard twisting curve through his wings. The
curve meant that he would fly slowly, and now he slowed until the wind was a
whisper in his face, until the ocean stood still beneath him. He narrowed his eyes in
fierce concentration, held his breath, forced one … single … more … inch … of …
curve … Then his feathers ruffled, he stalled and fell.
Seagulls, as you know, never falter, never stall. To stall in the air is for them
disgrace and it is dishonour.
But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings again in that
trembling hard curve – slowing, slowing, and stalling once more – was no ordinary
bird.
- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)