1. Syntactic Complexity and The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is typically one of the most challenging books secondary students read.
One common challenge to a modern reader is the typical length of Hawthorne's sentences.
His initial sentence is 45 words, and it is relatively simple to find many examples of sentences of more than 75 words.
Why we have come to expect shorter sentences?

2. “Kernel Sentences"
A kernel sentence is a sentence that contains only a noun and a verb (I walk.)
Expanded sentences are kernel sentences plus adjectives and adverbs (describing words) (I walk quickly.)
These sentences help the writer express thoughts that make the sentences clear and interesting to the reader.

3. Sentence Patterns 1: Subject-Verb (S-V) Example: Dogs bark.
2: Subject-Verb-Object (S-V-O)
Example: Boys meet girls.
3: Subject-Linking Verb-Noun (S-LV-N)
Example: Tim is a secretary.

4. Sentence patterns 4: Subject-Linking Verb-Adjective (S-LV-A)
Example: Advice is cheap.
5: Subject-Verb-Indirect Object-Object (S-V-IO-O)
Example: We gave the waiter a tip.

5. Sentence patterns 6: Subject-Verb-Object-Object Complement (S-V-O-OC)
Example: Jim called his sister a lady.
7: Subject-Verb-Object-Adjective (S-V-O-A)
Example: Jim called his sister lazy.

6. Sentence Combining and Hawthorne Sentence 1
The woman was tall.
The woman was young. (WITH)
The woman had a figure of elegance.
The elegance was perfect.
The elegance was on a large scale.
Hawthorne's original sentence:
The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale.

7. Sentence Combining and Hawthorne Sentence 2
She had hair.
Her hair was dark. (AND)
Her hair was abundant.
Her hair was so glossy it threw off the sunshine with a gleam. (AND)
She had a face. (WHICH, BESIDE BEING)
Her face was beautiful from regularity of feature, (and)
Her face was beautiful from richness of complexion.
Her face had the impressiveness.
The impressiveness was belonging to a brow and eyes.
Her brow was marked.
Her eyes were deep (AND)
Her eyes were black

8. Hawthorne's original sentence
She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.

9. Sample Imitation The guitarist was talented.
The guitarist was cool. (WITH)
The guitarist had a style of blues.
The blues was jazzy.
The blues was from long ago.
The cool guitarist was talented, with a jazzy style of blues from long ago.