Sausage Sentences:
Hidden Descriptions

This original WritingFix prompt was created by Northern Nevada teacher Corbett Harrison at a Northern Nevada Writing Project inservice class.  "I've heard it said that there's not much original in education anymore," says Corbett, "but I am pretty sure that I invented the concept of sausage sentences. I hope you and your students enjoy this exercise."

Writer Instructions:

Challenge yourself by devoting a page in your journal or your writer's notebook to your original sausage sentences.

What is a sausage sentence?  It's a meaningful string of words whose beginning and ending letters match.  For example, notice how the blue letters match in the following sentence:

Every yellow warbler rested during Gideon's skillfully yodeled ditty.

Take five or ten minutes and write a sausage sentence that you really like.  Use the button game below to give you your first word, if you want. Don't be afraid to erase a word or two or three, if the sentence isn't going anywhere interesting!  And don't be afraid to just start over if you aren't liking your sentence.  And the is a hard word to use in a sausage sentence.

Once you have a sausage sentence you like, hide it in a story.  Make it the first sentence.  Make it the last sentence.  Or cleverly place it within your story.

Have a friend read your story.  See how long it takes him or her to find your sausage sentence hidden inside.