1. ASManager2.zip Driver
2. I_OVER.txt File Contents

I_OVER.txt Driver File Contents (ASManager2.zip)

Name: <  >
Class: <  >
Date: <  >


Overloaded Sentences

Long sentences that contain many different ideas are called "overloaded" sentences. Often these different ideas are joined together with connector words like and, but, which, and so. The result can be a sentence that is too long and complicated. For example, the sentence below really rambles!

Wool hats, insulated snow suits, heavy boots, thermal underwear, and huge mittens made the children look like small, fat dwarfs struggling through the snowdrifts toward the school where they would spend the day studying spelling, math, history, and science, including a unit on life in the tropics while outside the temperature plummets to 40 degrees below zero with a wind-chill factor of 80 degrees below zero.

Make the writing easier and more interesting to read by breaking it into several smaller sentences.

Wool hats, insulated snow suits, heavy boots, thermal underwear, and huge mittens made the children look like small, fat dwarfs. They struggled through the snowdrifts toward the school. There they would spend the day studying spelling, math, history, and science, including a unit on life in the tropics! Outside the temperature plummeted to 40 degrees below zero with a wind-chill factor of 80 degrees below zero.

Improve the sentences below by separating the different ideas into two or more sentences. You may omit some words, but make sure you include all the ideas.



1.   The fastest animal on earth is the cheetah because he can run 70 miles an hour and that's fast enough to get a speeding ticket.

2.   The sundial is one of the oldest clocks known to humans and uses the shadow cast by the sun as its pointer for telling the hour which is not very handy on a cloudy day.

3.   Some people believe you can get rid of warts on your hands by rubbing them with a potato which has been cut in half and then burying the potato outside when the moon is full, and this is called a superstition because there is no proof and no scientific reason why it should work.

4.   The first people to ride surfboards were the Hawaiians and it was a favorite sport of the royal family and the kings and princes had surfing contests on boards they made out of trees which were many times larger and heavier than the surfboards used today.

5.   Dinosaur means "terrible lizard" and dinosaurs actually were enormous lizards, and some of them were very fierce and terrible.

6.   Although pigs are thought to be messy and dirty, they are actually very smart and Russian scientists have taught them to respond to forty-four different commands and have had the pigs perform in pig circuses.

7.    The Cape ground squirrel of southern Africa carries its own umbrella, which is actually its bushy tail which it raises for shade when the temperature climbs above 104 degrees Fahrenheit so then it can stay above ground searching for seeds and nuts much longer.

8.  Eighteenth century women wore wigs that were four feet tall, which they matted with lard and dusted with flour and decorated with stuffed birds, fake flowers, fruits, and ship models, and these wigs were often inhabited by live mice and rats!


Name and save this file now. (Press ctrl+S, type a name for the file, and press enter.)

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Now write your own overloaded sentence at the <  > marker below. Make it as long as possible. Use some of the words below to help hook the different thoughts together.

and      but   while    where     when
because  for   after    although  as
since    if

<  >


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Rewrite/Edit

Copy your overloaded sentence below. Then rewrite it so it becomes several shorter and less exhausting sentences. But remember, don't make your sentences too short and choppy!

<  >


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From Overloaded Sentence to Paragraph

Sometimes overloaded sentences contain enough information for a paragraph. After you edit a rambling sentence, read it over. Can you add more information and a final sentence that ties it all together? If so, you may have written a paragraph.

Scroll back up to your sentence and try to make it into a paragraph.


If you haven't done so already, name and save this file now. (Press ctrl+S, type a name for the file, and press enter.)

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end of activity
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