Model Sentences

Imitating the writing of others can help you improve your own writing. For this assignment, you will examine sentences from expert stylists and try to emulate them. You will substitute different subject matter but try to imitate the underlying structure of the original.

Begin by carefully analyzing the effects of the original passage. Think carefully about how the model sentence works. Then, write at least THREE creative imitations using the same fundamental structure.

Model Sentence
Creative Imitations
“It was in the books while it was still in the sky.”

— John Updike, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu”
(describing the home run Ted Williams hit in his last career at bat)

She was enrolled at UT before she was born.


He had won the election before the first vote.


They were celebrating while the other team was still at bat.



Model One:
“Shakespeare was almost certainly homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual.”
— Stephen Booth, Shakespeare’s Sonnets


Model Two:
“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”
— American proverb


Model Three:
“Madame de Chevreuse had sparkling intelligence, ambition, and beauty in plenty; she was flirtatious, lively, bold, enterprising; she used all her charms to push her projects to success, and she almost always brought disaster to those she encountered on her way.”
— La Rochefoucauld, Mémoirs


Download: Model Sentences