Author's Purpose and Main Idea Worksheet
Francis Scott Key, a lawyer negotiating an important prisoner exchange during the War of
1812, was the accidental poet of our national anthem when he hastily jotted down "Defense
of Fort McHenry," after watching twenty-five hours of bombardment. The flag flying over Fort
McHenry had survived the night from the "twilight's last gleaming" to the "dawn's early light."
The resilience and endurance of that flag was Key's inspiration. Today, the national anthem
is played at every sports event, including the Olympics, and asks the same question every
time it is sung: Does the flag still wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave?"
Instructions: Read the question and highlight the academic vocabulary in the question, then
read the selection and answer the questions.
1. Which sentence best states the main idea of the paragraph?
A The words to the national anthem remind us of the characteristics of America.
O B The national anthem is a song of war and should not be sung at sports events.
By

sentences vary by structure as well as by function. there are compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

simple sentence

i like to read.

a simple sentence has one independent clause.

compound sentence

i like to read, and i also like to write.

a compound sentence includes more than one independent clause, connected by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, or yet).

complex sentence

i prefer to read books that are bestsellers.

a complex sentence includes one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. (a dependent clause is one that cannot stand alone.) types of dependent clauses include relative clauses (i kicked the boy who pinched me), adverb clauses (i am going home now because i have a curfew), and noun clauses (i don't know what to do next).

compound-complex sentence

although i prefer to read current bestsellers, i do like to read old agatha christie mysteries, and i also like some 20th-century science fiction.

compound-complex sentences take a bunch of clauses (multiple independent clauses, and one or more dependent clauses) and toss them together like a salad. although these sentences take practice to write in a grammatically correct fashion, they can hold a tremendous amount of meaning, and are common in academic writing.