Track 1 - "Desmond's Flight"

  Near the beginning of this school year, I utilized creative thinking and story telling ability in order to create this short “12 Sentence Syntax” story…

  Desmond lay in the tall weeds in wait, face down, eyes clamped shut, breathing silently, his heart pounding away like a puppy’s hind leg during a belly scratch. (Cumulative sentence) He couldn’t wrap his eight-year old mind around the chase, but he understood his need to move quickly across the obstacle course of houses, fences, shrubberies, and lawn gnomes. (Compound sentence) Every player in this sick contest, this match-up of stealth and survival skills, knew the consequences of failure. (Appositive) Desmond considers what he will be paid for falling short: the revelation of his weakness, the humiliation of his loss, and the shame of his position on the totem pole. (Parallel structure) He notices the silence and stillness in the crowding weeds. (Simple sentence) One chance. (Rhetorical fragment) The hunted hopes that he is unspotted as he rises and hopes that he is faster than they are and hopes that what he hears is “just the wind.” (Parallel structure) He hopes, and he is seen. (Balanced) Below him the ground has become a smeared blur. (Inverted sentence) He ran his hardest and spent every drop of adrenaline in his small body, but was it enough? (Rhetorical question) Desmond clears his head, and looks at the area around him, and thinks, and realizes, and celebrates. (Polysyndeton) The time he spent fearfully planning, the thoughts he mulled over to build courage, the determination in every step he took all helped him escape from being next in line to be “it.” (Periodic sentence)

  Each statement in this story demonstrates a different type of sentence, and the story's construction demonstrates the following National Educational Technology Standards:

Students create original works as a means of personal expression.  (S.1) This story was a Drew Davidson original.Students apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.  (S.1) I wrote this story using all of the different sentence types we were introduced to in that day's lesson.Students communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.  (S.2) I have presented this story both on paper (to my class and teacher) and in digital format through my blog and through this ePortfolio.