By: Aimee Buckner Haisten, 2026 CCIRA Featured Presenter
At the start of every school year, I felt both excitement and exhaustion. Those first weeks are filled with routines, resetting expectations, and getting a classroom community up and running again. Yet, they’re also invigorating—the chance to begin anew with fresh ideas, renewed energy, and a rekindled passion for teaching. As educators, we’re fortunate to have this cycle of continual reflection and growth embedded in our profession.
In recent years, I’ve applied this same mindset to my own practice, especially in teaching writing. I returned to the role of learner—reading research, exploring new perspectives, and reconnecting with core principles that help students develop their voice and clarity as writers. While I once focused on using notebooks to nurture student identities and launch writing projects (Stenhouse Publishers, 2005, 2009, 2013), my latest fascination has centered around the power of the sentence.
A sentence, after all, holds remarkable capacity. It can reveal a theme, capture a writer’s complex idea, or unlock deeper understanding for the reader. The research is clear – spending time on sentence level instruction – analysis and construction-is key to developing students’ writing skills (Anderson & LaRocca, 2017; Collins & Norris, 2017; Graham, 2020; Graham & Alves, 2021; Graham & Harris 2015; Hochman & Wexler, 2017; Sedita, 2023). By embracing the reciprocity between reading and writing—studying how syntax and semantics shape meaning—we can help students see sentences not as isolated grammar drills but as dynamic building blocks of language.
Too often, reading and writing are taught in silos, separated by subject blocks, test preparation, or curriculum pacing. This disconnect can obscure how closely these skills inform and strengthen each other. When we instead highlight their interconnectedness, we unlock more meaningful learning opportunities.
To bridge this gap, I’ve begun using a simple classroom routine – Sentence Digs – inspired by Anderson and La Rocca’s (2017) and Charles and Lily Fillmore’s work (2012). It follows a three-step process—Take Apart, Put Together, Apply—and it encourages students to engage deeply with language. They analyze sentence structure, explore its function and meaning, and reflect on the writer’s choices, all while remaining anchored in the texts they’re already studying.
This routine doesn’t rely on complicated materials or elaborate planning. Its power lies in the questions it prompts and the clarity it brings. Students not only gain insight into how sentences communicate meaning—they also learn how to craft their own with intention and precision. Rich, well-constructed sentences are gold mines for both readers and writers. And when we treat them as such, we give our students tools not just to comprehend the world around them, but to express their own complex ideas within it.
For example, you might be studying inventors in social studies or electricity in science and find yourself reading Bright Dreams: The Brilliant Ideas of Nikola Tesla by Tracey Dockray (2020). A sentence dig lesson might look like this:
Focus: Understanding the impact of a cause/effect sentence.
Using conjunctions to create cause/effect sentences.
Showcase Sentence: Nikola and Westinghouse were chosen | to illuminate the Chicago’s World Fair | since their AC cost much less | than Edison’s DC.
Ask: In this sentence, the author uses abbreviations that they expect the reader to know. In the context of electricity, what does AC and DC mean? AC refers to alternating current and DC refers to direct current; they both indicate how electricity is flowing through a current.
If you prefer, you can organize your chunks on sentence strips. Move them around to help students focus on one chunk and then another. You’ll move them back together later.
Apply
During this part, students quickly apply their new knowledge about the sentence to their reading and writing. These are quick efforts and may be followed up with more practice.
| Discuss: Aside from earning money for illuminating the Chicago’s World Fair, why is this a significant event in Tesla’s life? Writing Focus: Try writing your own sentence with a cause/effect sentence structure. Use the showcase sentence as your model. If you want to engage your students in sentence combining work to build cause/effect sentences, consider using or adapting this Think Sheet. |
In my new book, Sentence Digs and during my conference sessions, we’ll dig into rich, well-constructed sentences exploring the routine to support comprehension and better writing. My hope is that every reader and writer, speaker and listener, student and teacher feel confident in their ability to understand and use language in a way that helps them to connect with sentences, texts, each other, and the world.
The unavoidable fact is that our school days are long but our teaching time is short. There is never enough time, so we find ourselves having to prioritize instruction. At a conference recently, a teacher asked me – how important is this work…really? Having short, weekly, explicit routines to teach syntax and semantics of sentences that carry rich meaning will not only support reading comprehension, it will also model for and support students in writing those kinds of sentences. There is gold in this reciprocity. It’s important.
About the Author:
Aimee Buckner Haisten brings over three decades of experience to the field of education, where she has served as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, literacy specialist, published author, and international consultant. Her work has reached audiences across local, state, national, and international platforms, with a focus on elevating reading and writing instruction. Aimee’s contributions have appeared in several peer-reviewed journals, and she is the author of four acclaimed titles with Stenhouse Publishers. Her forthcoming book, Sentence Digs: Teaching the Reading and Writing Connection Through Syntax and Semantics, is scheduled for release in late 2025.
Aimee Buckner Haisten brings over three decades of experience to the field of education, where she has served as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, literacy specialist, published author, and international consultant. Her work has reached audiences across local, state, national, and international platforms, with a focus on elevating reading and writing instruction. Aimee’s contributions have appeared in several peer-reviewed journals, and she is the author of four acclaimed titles with Stenhouse Publishers. Her forthcoming book, Sentence Digs: Teaching the Reading and Writing Connection Through Syntax and Semantics, is scheduled for release in late 2025. Contact Aimee at aimeebuckner@gmail.com.
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