Now that “word” month is over (January) and January’s “homework help” week-plus is over, we can turn our attention to February’s topic—phrases, sentences, and clauses.
It has been said that when a banker or a counterfeit money “agent” learns about counterfeit money, he or she begins by learning what the real thing looks like. We use this same approach to teach about sentences, clauses, and phrases in our language arts books: teach the students what a real sentence looks like—and then teach what are not real sentences.
Thus, we will also start with sentences here on LL 365 and work backwards.
We will begin with a simple acronym that we use to teach students the five things a sentence must contain in order to be a sentence:
CAVES
C apital letter
A ll makes sense
V erb
E nd mark
S ubject
We will learn more about sentences throughout February, but for now, if you write a sentence and you are unsure of whether it is a “real” sentence, use CAVES.
When a sentence is not a "real" sentence, the culprit is usually the A one—All makes sense. And that “A” one will take us into sentences vs. phrases and clauses…on another day. Happy writing!
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