Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Lessons from Laura: Almanzo’s Horses

Laura Ingalls Wilder brilliantly introduces the story of her husband, Almanzo Wilder in Farmer Boy, the second of her Little House books. The plot revolves around one seemingly simple question: Should Almanzo grow up to be a farmer like his father? Yes, he concludes at the end of that story, for then he shall have a horse of his own.

Almanzo Wilder, c. 1880s

Horses prove a life-long obsession for Almanzo and one that Laura shares. When their paths finally cross in By the Shores of Silver Lake, she notices his horses—and then him. Here is what she says: “Suddenly into the sunny green and blue came two brown horses with flowing black manes and tails, sitting side by side in harness. Their brown flanks and shoulders gleamed in the sunshine, their slender legs stepped daintily, their necks were arched and their ears pricked up, and they tossed their heads proudly as they went by…a young man stood up in the wagon, driving…”

The young man, as we know, is Almanzo. Perhaps Laura sequences her attention this way because she is being coy, but given the recurrence of this type of picture—indeed, she always seems to notice Almanzo’s horses before noticing him—it seems she is pointing to something more literary. Almanzo’s horses are not simply a prize that Laura wants to win as his someday spouse; they are a motif for the adventurous spirit they share.

A Language Lesson

Let’s consider their adventurous spirit by classifying and diagramming the following sentences that tell of Laura helping Almanzo tame a horse named Barnum. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from These Happy Golden Years; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.

Final Thoughts

Although Laura takes the reins in the short scene pictured above, we know from reading the full series and following her life more broadly that she and Almanzo were a team. Sometimes he drove; sometimes she drove. Either way, Barnum and other such horses were likely to run away if Laura and Almanzo didn’t keep their cool and work together with steadfast resolve. Barnum is the first horse they tamed together, ultimately teaching him how to walk. But that doesn’t mean he stopped running altogether. He simply learned to pace himself appropriately.

Therein lies the final lesson from Laura for this blog series: Taming the passions of one’s heart is part of blazing the trail of life.   

Laura and Almanzo Wilder, 1885

Laura, we well know, was much like Pa in always wanting to go West. But also like Pa, she tamed that passion to embrace the duties of running a household. After much suffering, including more that comes after the timeframe of the series, Laura and Almanzo settle down on Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri, far from either of their childhood families. They live out their lives, shifting from season to season, never forgetting their upbringing and ultimately bringing it back to life for the benefit of so many others through the Little House books.

For as much effort as some have made to include Rose in that process, it bears mentioning that Almanzo played a role, too. He encouraged Laura’s writing, supported her travels, and furnished her with ample knowledge of building and workmanship and other farm know-how. Even more importantly, he recognized who she was and what she was capable of.

Tamed by life but never broken in spirit, Laura and Almanzo are nothing less than trailblazers who have inspired untold numbers to take life by the reins.

Images courtesy of Wiki Commons

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Lessons from Laura: Mary’s Eyes

The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are filled with many family hardships. Though readers feel each of these differently, there is something particularly jarring about Mary’s blindness. Not only does it seem to come from nowhere, appearing at the beginning of By the Shores of Silver Lake after such a happy conclusion to On the Banks of Plum Creek, but it also proves to be about the only hardship the Ingalls family cannot fully remedy. As we learn, Mary does not get her eyesight back, and her life is thus fundamentally altered.

Mary Amelia Ingalls c. 1880s

Mary becomes more reserved, loses her chance of becoming a teacher, and becomes permanently dependent on her parents and then later on her sisters. Although over the course of the rest of the series, we see Mary go off to college, learn to read braille, and find peace with her lot, we the readers are still left feeling sad for Mary. She must have suffered greatly, and in a different way, so, too, must have Laura.

Their relationship changes forever after Mary becomes blind. They stop being childhood playmates and embrace very different paths. Nevertheless, they do not stop loving each other and sacrificing for each other. We see this in the way that Laura steps up to become a teacher in Mary’s place, saves money to put toward Mary’s education, and—most especially—in how Laura becomes Mary’s eyes.  

A Language Lesson

Let’s join Laura in one of her first attempts at being Mary’s eyes by classifying and diagramming the following sentences. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from By the Shores of Silver Lake; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.

Final Thoughts

In this particular moment in Laura’s life, we see the blossoming of her worldview, one that is ever focused on seeing the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Hidden as they sometimes are, she nevertheless knows that they are always present, always waiting to be contemplated and enjoyed. She knows that blindness, true blindness, is more than an ailment of the eyes such as Mary suffers. It is an ailment of the soul, and she earnestly seeks to heal that more damaging blindness she fears for her sister.

Left to Right: Carrie, Mary, and Laura Ingalls, c 1879/1880

Therein lies another of Laura’s many lessons: Imagination opens the window of the soul and lets the True, the Good, and the Beautiful stream through. Happily, Mary welcomes that lesson in time, for in These Happy Golden Years, during a visit home from college, she tells Laura, “I never see things so well with anyone else.” Indeed, many of us feel the same way about Laura.

Images courtesy of Wiki Commons

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Lessons from Laura: Charlotte the Rag Doll

Charlotte the Rag Doll is one of the few treasures Laura Ingalls Wilder owned as a little girl. It was given to her one magical Christmas morning when she still lived in her little house in the big woods. Stockings for her sisters and cousins and herself hung from the chimney, each with a bright red pair of mittens and a red-and-white-striped peppermint stick. But, for whatever wonderful reason, Laura’s stocking had something more; it had a rag doll.

Just as the name implies, rag dolls were made from rags or—at best—scraps of leftover materials. The “rags” were worth little or nothing in real dollars, but they were carefully saved for all manner of other purposes from the most practical, such as patching a dress, to the comparatively extravagant, such as making a rag doll like Charlotte. Though lacking the monetary value of one of Nellie Oleson’s China dolls, Charlotte was every bit as valuable in Laura’s eyes, if not more so.

A Language Lesson

Let’s join Laura as she gazes upon Charlotte for the first time by classifying and diagramming the following sentences. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from Little House in the Big Woods; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.

Final Thoughts

As a motif, Charlotte the Rag Doll symbolizes Laura’s childhood innocence. We see this come full circle when many winters later, in On the Banks of Plum Creek, an older Laura is forced by Ma to give Charlotte to a little neighbor girl. The girl, as we know, proves a horrible caretaker and abandons Charlotte, plucked bald and ill-abused, in an icy mud puddle.

Although this is nothing in comparison to the real tragedies that befell her family time and again, we know this episode in Laura’s life is still utterly scandalous. All at once she is forced to “grow up” and see that the world can be mean and cruel.

But the incredible thing is how Laura moves forward. Rather than discard Charlotte as a childish thing of the past, she insists Ma restore her. Grown up or not, Laura wants to keep her rag doll. No, she doesn’t plan to play with her anymore or snuggle with her at bedtime, but she wants her all the same. She wants to remember what it’s like to be a little girl; she wants to stay a little girl at heart.

Therein lies another of Laura’s lessons: A well-preserved childhood can help us through the trials that come later.

First Image Credit: Rag Doll “Susie” by Bertha Semple, c. 1937 courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Second Image Credit: Rag Doll by Archie Thompson, c. 1940 courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Lessons from Laura: Pa’s Fiddle

No book in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder would be complete without the accompaniment of Pa’s fiddle. From house to house, it always strikes just the right note for every occasion.

Pa’s fiddle was said to be a coveted Amati

When Pa wants to entertain Laura, Mary, Carrie, and eventually Grace, he plays “Old Grimes” or “Old Dan Tucker” or “Captain Jinks.” When he wants them to drift off to sleep, he plays “The Blue Juniata” or “The Beacon Light of Home.” When he wants to lift their spirits, he plays “Home Sweet Home.”

Always, Pa’s fiddle sanctifies the moments of Laura’s life, and in the process, it draws us, the readers, deeper and deeper into the beauty of her family.

A Language Lesson

Let’s allow Pa’s fiddle to stir our imagination as we classify and diagram the following sentences. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from Little House in the Big Woods; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.

“Lay” serves as a linking verb because you could substitute the being verb “was” and retain the meaning. That makes “awake” a participle predicate adjective modifying “Laura.”
Don’t get tricked on this one. “Began” is not a transitive verb. We know that because the sentence cannot be rephrased in the passive voice. That makes “to quiver…music” a complimentary infinitive phrase and not an infinitive direct object phrase.

Final Thoughts

Time and again in the Little House books, Pa’s fiddle does more than match the mood of his family. It elevates it, calling them to be joyful in even the hardest of times. Laura heeds this with all the trust of an adoring child. She listens to Pa’s songs, completely absorbed, until she has learned them by heart—until they have become her own songs.

By the time we meet her as a grown woman narrating the story of her life, it is clear that she has come to embody the very spirit of Pa’s fiddle. She knows that merriment is the much-needed companion of hard work; one without the other is neither happiness nor contentment.

Therein lies another of Laura’s many lessons: Music and song bring out the joy of hard work.

Images courtesy of Wiki Commons

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Lessons from Laura: A Little House

Little House in the Big Woods Replica

The most prominent motif in the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder is the little house itself.  From the Big Woods of Wisconsin to the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in one little house after another as a girl. Sometimes the houses had glass windows. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes the snow came in. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the chimneys blazed. Sometimes they didn’t.

But what the little houses lacked in size and stuff they made up for in virtues. “Courage, self reliance, independence, integrity and helpfulness,” as Laura so oft-stated later in life, were the things that fortified her little houses and made them beautiful.  

A Language Lesson

It all started with Pa and Ma and the example they set every day through thick and thin. Let’s think deeply about that as we classify and diagram the following sentences. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from Little House on the Prairie; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.

Final Thoughts

Caroline and Charles Ingalls

What a tremendous effort that must have been for Pa and Ma, and what a relief, also, it must have been to put their children to bed inside four walls, safe from the wolves and the uncertainties of the pioneer road.

Whether Laura realized the extent of her parents’ labors at the time or only later in life, it clearly made an impression on her. One gets the sense that it was her little houses, through the sacrificial love of her parents, that built Laura.

Therein lies her most important lesson: Families that sacrifice for each other will be strong and good and loving.

Images courtesy of Wiki Commons

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Language of Grammar: Authentic Sentences #3

Being able to classify and diagram the work of William Shakespeare is considered a sign of mastery, not least because he is the foremost master of the English language himself. Everything about his writing often seems highly complex at first, but with a little mental muscle we can break his verses down into their core parts just as we would with any other sentence.

Doing this in the classroom has an amazing effect. Students may need a little help getting started on one of his verses, but they soon figure out the sentence pattern with all its modifiers and create an elaborate diagram connecting each word.

Even better, doing this demystifies what Shakespeare is saying. From figurative language to humor, it pretty much all makes sense in the end.

PRACTICE SENTENCES

In this series on the language of grammar, we already covered William Shakespeare’s connection to Queen Elizabeth. In contrast to that earlier post which was written to practice participles, this post will work with Shakespeare’s own words as yet another example of authentic language.

There is, of course, much to choose from, so I like selecting verses from one of his plays that we already study in Literature. Here are the classifications and diagrams from the “Tomorrow Speech” in Macbeth. Though it consists of ten verses, it is only four sentences.

“The way to dusty death” is part of a prepositional phrase in which “on” is inferred. I have used an “x” as a placeholder for it.
There is no verb in this sentence, but we can infer Shakespeare to have meant, “Go out, out brief candle.” Once again, I used an “x” as a placeholder for the missing word.
“Player” is an appositive of “shadow,” so we place them on the same line separated by a comma.
I treated “full of” as a compound preposition. Another option is to separate them and use “full” as an adjective, but I don’t think that works as well.

The meaning of Macbeth’s speech is readily apparent after classifying and diagramming it: life is pointless. Don’t worry; my class spends ample time discussing this message, and we always disagree with Macbeth.

And yet we also realize that this sentiment is fairly common in the world. None, however, have expressed it with the same poignancy as Shakespeare.

Therein lies another important lesson. Shakespeare could have just had Macbeth say, “Life is pointless!”

Instead, he used ten whole verses of poetic genius to turn one of the saddest thoughts imaginable into a work of art. His words seem more than words. They are feelings so real we can almost touch them. At the same time, however, we recoil from their horror. Rather than live the life of a morose idiot strutting and fretting toward death, Shakespeare has actually called us to live a true and meaningful life.

Now that’s a powerful use of language, not to mention an interesting Grammar lesson.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Language of Grammar: Authentic Sentences #2

Today we will classify and diagram some of Queen Elizabeth’s most famous quotes. Though we have covered her story quite extensively in this series on the language of grammar, it has not always been glowing. It is only fitting, then, to give Elizabeth a chance to speak for herself. After all, it was her words more than her actions that won the hearts of her people.

Before we begin, let’s recap what we have covered about her so far and match it up with our grammar lessons.

First, we looked at her ascent to the throne of England in connection to learning pattern six. Then, we covered some basic background on her rule when we learned pattern seven.

We continued her story through three lessons on verbals. For infinitives we considered her relationship with Saint Edmund Campion. For participles, we examined her patronage of William Shakespeare. For gerunds, we reviewed her leadership role in defeating the Spanish Armada.

PRACTICE SENTENCES

Now it’s time to look at what Queen Elizabeth said during her lifetime. That will give us a window into how she perceived herself and how she wanted to be perceived by others. It will also give us more practice with authentic language, or words spoken in their natural context. 

We have looked at a lot of these elements already, so let’s focus on the appositive phrase “and a king of England.” It is an appositive because it is restating the idea of “king” in a different way. We stack “and” on a dotted horizontal line because it is an expletive, meaning it does not really have a function or add meaning to the sentence.
This is a rather complicated diagram. Let’s focus on the phrase “more anxious than my country.” Whenever we see a comparison of the degree of something, we have to break down the inferred words in that comparison. In this case, we can understand the sentence to be saying, ‘There is nothing about which I am more anxious than I am anxious about my country.” Then, we draw the diagram with all of the inferred words marked by an “x.”
Notice that “but” is not a conjunction here. It is an adverb that means “only.”
“We pay for love” modifies “price.” It answers the question, “What kind of price?”
“Whose” is an adjective modifying “those.” It answers the question, “Which of those?” The answer is, “Those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.” Notice that “faith and silence” are compound direct objects even though they come at the beginning of the adjective clause.
Notice that “cannot” is a verb here as opposed to “can not,” which is a verb plus an adverb. The difference is that “cannot” means something is impossible whereas “can not” means something may or may not be possible.

This last quote is my favorite because of its political genius. With her characteristic eloquence, Queen Elizabeth aligns her rule with the Will of God and presents herself as His humble servant. This would have been a particularly important message to convey in light of England’s split with the Catholic Church. Without the pope to sanction her rule, she needed God to do so Himself.

But her cleverness does not stop there. In praising the gratitude of her people, she is actually applauding herself and implicitly stating that the people should be thankful she is queen.  

Now let’s focus on that last word for a moment: queen. Elizabeth knew that she was ruling in a man’s world. She felt the threat of rebellion at many points in her rule and knew she needed to present herself in a way that would make her appear not merely as strong as a king but even stronger.

At the same time, she needed to retain her femininity and make herself lovable. When taken as a whole, these quotes showcase the brilliant ways in which Queen Elizabeth walked that fine line. She was strong and beautiful, severe and magnanimous.

I imagine she would have taken Machiavelli’s advice about it being better to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both, as a challenge. “Of course I can be both!” she might have answered. Elizabeth was feared by many during her lifetime because of her iron-fisted rule, but it is the extent to which she was loved that is most remembered.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Language of Grammar: Authentic Sentences #1

Now that we have mastered classifying and diagramming the various sentence patterns and sentence types, we are ready to work with authentic language, or words spoken in their natural context.

So far, I have composed all the sentences in this blog series to fit a particular lesson. That is no longer necessary. We can now move on to sentences drawn from the bottomless treasure trove of the written and spoken word. There may be a few outstanding classifying and diagramming rules for us to learn, but we will deal with them as they come up.

PRACTICE SENTENCES

In keeping with our theme of the Renaissance and building off of our last post on Francis Petrarch, we turn to another humanist, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). He is considered one of the most influential political thinkers of his day and is most well-known for writing The Prince, which was meant as a guide for Medici de Lorenzo, ruler of Florence.

Machiavelli’s ideas continue to shape politics, statesmanship, and power today. Here are some of his most famous, not to mention controversial, quotes for us to classify and diagram.

“Who wishes to be obeyed” is a noun clause modifying “He.” It answers the question, “What kind of he?”
This sentence has another noun clause. “He has around him” modifies “men.” It answers the question, “Which men?”
“Who has power” is a noun clause that modifies “he.” It answers the question, “What kind of he?” Notice also that the subject noun in the second complete thought is inferred. I left it blank, but another option is to write an x in the space.
This complex sentence has the added complexity of using an unequal comparison between being feared and being loved, which is set up by the word “than.” We can infer a parallel structure in the comparison such that the phrase means “it is better to be feared than to be loved.”
This sentence has another noun clause. “That does not trust its people to be armed” modifies “government.” It answers the question, “What kind of government?”
Here we have another unequal comparison set up with the word “than.” The “sureness” of the sign of decay is guaranteed, or we might say maximized, by the contempt that is “held.”
The subject noun of the second complete thought is inferred, so I left it blank. While we could think of “few” as the subject pronoun, the sentence is meant to be parallel. Hence, “few” is an adjective just as “all” is an adjective.

Whether we agree with Machiavelli’s principles or not, he certainly had great insight into the politics of governance. He understood how to read and exploit the feelings of society for the advantage of his prince.

While we may not like his lack of moral scruples, his judgment was governed by something he thought far more sacred—power. In his view, every decision, every action of a ruler should be a careful calculation designed to secure and augment the strength of the state.

Although it makes Machiavelli seem somewhat sinister by our modern sensibilities, there is an honesty to his politics. He did not pretend to serve the people, at least not directly. His allegiance was to his “prince” who, in turn, offered safety and security to the kingdom. Without a strong centralized government, he contended, the people would suffer—not that he necessarily cared about them for their own sake

In any event, Machiavelli’s ideas make for wonderful practice classifying and diagramming sentences. They also make for wonderful debate in the classroom!

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Language of Grammar: Compound-Complex Sentences

We have finally arrived at the dreaded compound-complex sentence, the very name of which often strikes fear in the hearts of my students. It sounds so complicated! At least it did to me when I was their age. I had a hard time breaking the sentence down into its parts. There are three in all, consisting of two complete thoughts and one incomplete thought.

Complete Thought + Complete Thought + Incomplete Thought = Compound-Complex Sentence

Once my students memorize this formula, they simply need to put it together with the same rules for compound sentences and complex sentences. As the name implies, a compound-complex sentence builds from those earlier structures, so a good foundation in them is essential.

SAMPLE LESSON

Here is our first sample sentence.

(We’ll look at the merits of Petrarch’s philosophy shortly. For now, let’s focus on the sentence structure.)

When I guide my students through a sentence like this, I tell them to first look for any conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, or subordinate conjunctions. For example, if we see a comma conjunction, then we know two complete thoughts are being combined. If we see a subordinate conjunction followed by a phrase that otherwise looks like a complete thought, then we have an incomplete thought.

In this example, we have the conjunction “but” set off with a comma. We also have the subordinate conjunction “because” followed by a complete thought. Right away, that should tell us we have two complete thoughts and one incomplete thought. That makes the sentence compound-complex!

To be more precise, the first complete thought is “Francis Petrarch considered the Middle Ages a period of darkness.” The second complete thought is “he considered himself enlightened.” The incomplete thought is “because he valued the principles of classical antiquity.”

Yes, there are a number of steps in identifying a compound-complex sentence, but they follow a predictable pattern. With practice, students come to recognize them quickly.

To diagram a compound-complex sentence, we start off with the two complete thoughts, stacking the first one on top and the second on the bottom. We connect them with our “step” from the top verb to the bottom verb and place the conjunction on the step.

Once we have done that, then we diagram the part of the incomplete thought that looks complete. That should be placed beneath the complete thought it modifies, which may mean it needs to be pushed far off to the side to fit below.

Finally, we connect it with a dotted diagonal line from verb to verb and write the subordinate conjunction on it.

PRACTICE SENTENCES

We’ll continue with Francis Petrarch (1304-1374) for our practice sentences and try to get to the bottom of why he considered his era, the Renaissance, so far superior to the preceding Middle Ages.

In fact, we have Petrarch to thank for all those comics with knights riding around in the pitch black. No, he did not actually draw them, but his philosophy gave birth to them. He called the Middle Ages the “Dark Ages,” and that term has stuck throughout the centuries. Only in modern times have historians begun to reconsider the merits of this term and all the negative connotations it implies.

Obviously, knights were not really riding around blindly in the dark, but more to the point, society as a whole was not simply devoid of culture and learning during the Middle Ages. There were ample great thinkers throughout the era, many of whom went on to become saints: Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Thomas Aquinas, to name a few.

What’s more, they were not wholly disconnected from the works of classical antiquity. Rather, they expanded and developed them in innovative ways, often drawing previously unseen connections to Christianity. One might even argue the Middle Ages gave birth to greater originality than the Renaissance where artists painstakingly copied the work of their classical icons as if they were a fixed formula or pattern.

The point is not so much to compare which era is better but to acknowledge the richness found in both. Petrarch may have been a genius of sorts, but that does not mean the generations of the preceding era were inferior, or worse yet, “backwards.” Rather, the differences between the Renaissance and the Middle Ages reflect a major shift in the worldview that prevailed throughout Western Civilization.

We’ll look at some of those differences in the next post.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Language of Grammar: Complex Sentences

It’s time to move on to complex sentences. Unlike compound sentences, which combine two complete thoughts, complex sentences combine one complete thought with one incomplete thought.

Complete Thought + Incomplete Thought = Complex Sentence

And the order does not matter. We can put the complete thought at the beginning or at the end and still have a complex sentence. The only difference it makes is in the punctuation, explained below.

SAMPLE LESSON

So let’s see what this looks like with a few examples.

This example begins with a complete thought, “Galileo was famous.” It ends with an incomplete thought, “because he developed the first telescope.”  Now if we flip the order of the sentence and put the incomplete thought first, then the punctuation changes.

Notice we put a comma after the incomplete thought. That is because incomplete thoughts are always attached to the predicate, making it an inverted sentence. The comma is a handy way to show this.

Much like compound sentences which are combined using conjunctions or connective adverbs, complex sentences are combined using subordinate conjunctions.

In the examples above, the subordinate conjunction is “because.” If we were to take out “because,” “he developed the first telescope” would actually be a complete thought. As soon as we put it in, however, it can no longer stand alone. It becomes dependent or subordinate to the rest of the sentence. Without the addition of “Galileo became famous,” “because he developed the first telescope” would not make sense. It would leave us wondering what else was meant to be said.

This brings us to a few additional terms. When talking about incomplete thoughts in the context of complex sentences, we can also call them dependent thoughts or subordinate thoughts. Likewise, complete thoughts can also be called independent thoughts. In order to have a term that opposes subordinate, my students and I also call them bossy thoughts.

No matter the terminology, the point is the same. One of the thoughts can stand alone; the other cannot. By putting them together, we end up with a complex sentence.

Diagrams of complex sentences always start off with the complete thought on top. We diagram this in the regular way. Then, we diagram everything else but the subordinate conjunction as if it were a complete thought just beneath it. Finally, we attach the two thoughts with a diagonal dotted line from verb to verb. Just make sure to capitalize the first word of the sentence so readers know whether the sentence is inverted or not.

PRACTICE SENTENCES

Renaissance scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) will be the focus of these practice sentences. He was a controversial person in his day because he pushed the boundaries of scientific discovery in a way that challenged the Church, ultimately leading to conflict. Let’s take a quick look at what happened and practice complex sentences as we do so.

This sentence has a direct object phrase, which needs to be placed on a pedestal. Many direct object phrases begin with the word “that.” If “that” is not included, and often it is not, then simply put an “x” on the horizontal line on top of the direct object phrase.
Note that “out of” is a compound preposition, so both words go on the same line.

Sadly, Galileo’s story is not the most flattering for the Church. Its stubborn resistance to heliocentrism reflects a complex insecurity. At stake was not only the Church’s credibility on scientific matters but on theological ones as well, or so they thought. If they could get the galaxy backwards, then might they also get a lot of other things backwards?

And so, Galileo was compelled to recant. As a devout Catholic, he preferred to maintain his ties with the Church than to push his theory forward. Perhaps he knew that time would allow the Church, as well as the rest of the world, to realize he was right about heliocentrism—and that a True worldview could never undermine the authority of the Church.