ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how to teach the students to write adverbial clauses. Adverbial clauses in sentences help reader's link ideas by creating a smoother flow of ideas than short, choppy, simple sentences. Moreover, adverbial clauses provide sentence variation, improving a paragraph's rhythm. Tom teaches freshmen and sophomores in an urban high school where low reading and writing achievement scores indicate a need for increased intervention. Tom sees an opportunity to link English to social studies, where students are writing about the American Revolution. Tom writes adverbial clauses on strips of yellow construction paper, using after, because, and if as his subordinating conjunctions. To strengthen the link between student writing and literature, Tom uses the first ten minutes to have students meet in groups and share the sentences containing adverbial clauses. Tom shows a transparency on the students have written their homework paragraphs. He intentionally reintroduces compound sentences at this point so students maintain proficiency with the first month's material.
