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As they read, have students annotate the article and discuss in their groups:

* What do you notice about the commentary? What does the author include in it?
* Is the commentary interesting or effective? What makes it so or not?
* How do you think the writer decides which sentence to discuss? Why do you think this?

Writing Activity: Have students choose their own sentences from independent reading books, songs, television shows, movies, articles or anywhere else, then write a brief commentary, modeled after the New Sentences articles. To stimulate ideas, ask them to consider:

* Why does this particular sentence stand out to you? How does it relate to the rest of the text?
* What is surprising, insightful, memorable, humorous or powerful about it?
* What interesting words, sentence structure or literary devices does the author use to communicate his or her ideas?
* What feelings or thoughts come up for you when you read or hear this sentence?

Closure: Have students put together their commentaries to create a class New Sentences column by hanging them on the wall, binding them in a book or using an online blogging platform, like Tumblr or Edublogs. Allow students to read and reflect on each other's articles by writing on sticky notes or using the online comment feature.
_________ 2. Making Text Connections

I like to think I know what death is. - From Jesmyn Ward's "Sing, Unburied, Sing"

No matter what they're reading, students need to be able to make connections to themselves, their world or other texts and concepts as they go. In this exercise, students study how the columnists write about their own connections to one sentence in a text. Then, they select sentences and write about what connections they can make themselves.

Warm-Up: For homework or during independent or shared reading, ask students to make at least one connection to the text they are reading, whether to something in their personal lives, to something they have been hearing about in the news or learning at school, or to something else they have read. Have them discuss as a class or write independently about how that connection helped them better understand or appreciate what they were reading.

Article Study: Independently or in small groups, have students read at least one article that makes each of the different types of connections: text-to-self, text-to-world or text-to-text. ( Here is an activity sheet that may help.)
Text-to-self connection articles: From Elin Hilderbrand's 'The Identicals'
Text-to-text connection articles: From 'Autumn,' by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Text-to-world connection articles: From 'Too Much and Not the Mood,' by Durga Chew-Bose
From 'Infinite Tuesday,' by Michael Nesmith
From 'The Idiot,' by Elif Batuman
From 'Lower Ed,' by Tressie McMillan Cottom
From 'An Arrangement of Skin,' by Anna Journey
From 'A Little Bit Like Fun,' by Sparks
From Protomartyr's 'A Private Understanding' From 'Sing, Unburied, Sing,' by Jesmyn Ward
_________ 3. Analyzing Literary Devices
Have them discuss in groups or pairs:

* What type of connection to the text does the author make in this piece: text-to-self, text-to-text or text-to-world? How do you know?
* How does her or his connection deepen or alter your understanding of the sentence?
* What connections can you make to this sentence?

Writing Activities:

- If necessary, practice this skill as a class by selecting sentences from a shared text and then writing a text-connection commentary together.

- Next, allow students to choose their own sentences from books, movies, television shows, songs, poems or other texts and write about their own text connections.

Closure: Have students share their work with the class and reflect on how another student's commentary influenced their understanding of a sentence. What did they do well? What was intriguing or insightful about their connection? Why?

My name is Sherman Alexie and I was born from loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss and loss. - From "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" by Sherman Alexie

The New Sentences column provides a bite-sized model for how to identify, analyze and evaluate literary devices - like the one in the Sherman Alexie sentence above - elegantly and effectively.

Warm-Up: Select several of the sentences from New Sentences that use literary devices, such as these:

From 'The Great Nadar,' by Adam Begley (parenthetical sentences)
From '21 Secrets of Million-Dollar Sellers,' by Stephen J. Harvill (comparison)
From 'The Idiot,' by Elif Batuman and From 'The World to Come,' by Jim Shepard (similes)
From 'Smile,' by Roddy Doyle (metaphor)
From 'Too Much and Not the Mood,' by Durga Chew-Bose (personification)
From 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me,' by Sherman Alexie (repetition)

Post each one on a piece of poster paper without the commentary. Assign small groups one of the sentences to analyze and annotate using these prompts:

* What type of literary device is being used here?
* What is the author trying to communicate through this device?
* How does the author's use of the literary device make you feel? What does it make you think?
* How effective do you think the author's use of the device is in this sentence? Why?

Have students rotate to several other posters and add to previous groups' annotations, notes and thoughts.

Article Study: To help guide students in learning how to turn their annotations into writing, have each group choose one of the sentences and provide them with the commentary from New Sentences. After reading the columnist's commentary, have them discuss:
_________ 4. Finding the Most Important Word
* What did our own commentary have in common with what this writer noted? * How does he or she analyze this quote? How is the analysis structured? (i.e., What does the commenter do in the beginning, middle and end? How long is it?)
* What effect does the literary device have on the author? How do you know?
* How does his or her commentary deepen or alter your understanding of the sentence?

Writing Activities:

- Practice this skill as a class by selecting sentences from a shared text and then writing a commentary on the use of literary devices in the sentence together.

- Next, allow students to choose their own sentences from books, movies, television shows, songs, poems or other texts and write their own literary device commentary.

- Finally, challenge students to use any of the sentences they studied as models for a "copy-change" exercise in which they write their own sentences that follow the structure - and imitate the literary device - of the original, but with their own new words.

Closure: Have students share their work with the class and have their peers reflect on how a student's commentary or copy-change experiment influenced their understanding of a literary device in a sentence. What did they do well? What could they build on?

Now, where I come from, we call a bloke like this a jobsworth - that is, a person who delights in acting in an obstructive or otherwise unhelpful manner. - From Showtime's "Twin Peaks," written by Mark Frost and David Lynch.

Identifying the most important word in a text can help students, especially struggling readers, understand bigger or more abstract ideas and themes by allowing them to focus on a small portion of the text. In this exercise, students use New Sentences as a model for determining the most important word in a text and then writing about how it influences the reader's understanding.
From 'Augustown,' by Kei Miller
Writing Activity: From 'Supercut,' by Lorde
From 'The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington'
Warm-Up: Independently, have students study the sentence without the commentary from From 'Twin Peaks,' by Mark Frost and David Lynch:

Ask them to decide what they think is the most important word in the sentence and why. In small groups or pairs, have them debate their choices. Then, discuss as a class.
_________ Going Further
Article Study: Have students read Nitsuh Abebe's commentary. What does he think is the most important word? How do you know? How does he show in his commentary how this word affects the rest of the sentence and the larger text?
Twitter Feed
Have students read several other New Sentences articles and debate which they think is the most important word in the sentence. Then, reveal the commentary and discuss:

* What does the author think is the most important word?
* If the author does not explicitly say what he thinks is the most important word, can you make an inference from the commentary? What evidence supports this inference?
* Do you agree with the author? Why or why not?

You might use the following articles for this activity:
Writing Prompt
- Allow students to choose their own sentences from books, movies, television shows, songs, poems or other texts and write their own most-important-word commentary.
Art Prompt
Closure:

-Have students share their commentary work with the class and have their peers reflect on it. Do they agree with the author's choice of the most important word and the commentary on it? Why or why not?

- Invite students to apply what they have learned to their own writing by choosing a piece they are currently working on, picking an important sentence (for example, the opening or closing line, the thesis statement, etc.), and identifying what they consider to be the most important word. They might then trade with a partner or in small groups and ask others to choose the most important word. Did they pick the same one as the author him or herself? If not, why not? Could revision help? How?

WHY NOT? (russell westbrook's shoes) pic.twitter.com/KKpy7jTnzM
- Sam Anderson (@shamblanderson) May 9, 2016

Have students look at Sam Anderson's Twitter feed, where he posts his favorite sentences daily. Discuss: What do they notice? From where and from whom does he get his sentences?

To encourage students to recognize and appreciate good writing in their daily lives, have them create their own New Sentences Twitter feed over the course of a week or more, identifying the best sentences they read (or hear) every day.

Challenge them to find their sentences from as many authors and sources as they can, such as books, magazines, news articles, songs, podcasts, TV shows, movies, comics and memes. They can record their sentences in a notebook or on their class Twitter or blog account.

Have students select one sentence from New Sentences to use as a creative writing prompt. They can use the ideas in the sentence and commentary, or their own personal connections to it, as inspiration. Or, they can use the sentence itself as the first sentence of their own short story, song, poem, memoir or comic.

Have students choose one of the New Sentences to use as a prompt to inspire a piece of artwork. Then, they can write a commentary to explain how their artwork reflects, expands upon or juxtaposes with the sentence. Alternatively, have students pair the sentence with a photograph or another piece of artwork and then write several paragraphs explaining how the two relate to one another.

_________

Related: Our 2012 lesson plan, " Sense, Sensibility and Sentences: Examining and Writing Memorable Lines "

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Teaching Close Reading and Compelling Writing With the 'New Sentences' Column

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As they read, have students annotate the article and discuss in their groups: * What do you notice about the commentary? What does the author include in it?* Is the commentary interesting or effective? What makes it so or not?* How do you think the writer decides which sentence to discuss?