Once students can identify most subjects and finite verbs in a sentence, the next step is to add complements. A complement, very simply, is whatever answers the questions “Whom?” or “What?” after a verb. As noted in the discussion of KISS differences, KISS offers the S/V/C pattern as the basis of a sentence rather than the traditional “subject and predicate.” (See "The Differences between KISS and Traditional Terms" in the  Background Essays.) Traditional grammar books rarely enable students to analyze complicated sentences because they basically ignore complements. Thus they cannot give students an essential, invariable guideline—the complement of one verb can never be the subject of another verb. As you will see as you get into the analysis of complicated sentences, this guideline is extremely important.

     Traditionally, grammarians have focused on categorizing words, not on analyzing sentences. Because verbs are so central to the language, the grammarians have given them a lot of attention. One of the things they have done is to put them into three categories—transitive, intransitive, and “linking.” Following the grammarians, the textbooks have uselessly tortured students with definitions of “transitive” and  “intransitive,” and with lists of “linking” verbs. I say “uselessly” because most college Freshmen cannot identify a verb in the first place, and because even many teachers find the categories to be confusing. (I’m thinking of the teacher on NCTE-Talk who advocated the teaching of grammar and asked why we no longer teach “transient” and “intransient” verbs.) KISS skips this whole problem by simply using the methods that the grammarians used to derive the three categories in the first place.
     Grammarians noted that some verbs take indirect and/or direct objects -- Our cat brought us (IO) a mouse (DO). They named these verbs “transitive.” They also noted that some verbs are not followed by words that answer the questions “Whom?” or “What?” (She runs every day.) They named these verbs “intransitive.” And they noted that some verbs take predicate nouns or predicate adjectives. (She is a teacher (PN). She is smart (PA).) They categorized these verbs as “linking.” Because most grammar textbooks do not teach students to identify complements in the first place, they cannot use this method for teaching the three categories of verbs. But KISS does, and thus KISS can.
     The three categories of verbs are more important as vocabulary words than they are as analytical tools, so KISS basically ignores them, opting for the sentence patterns instead. But if you do want to teach students the differences among transitive, intransitive, and linking verbs, begin with the normal KISS process for distinguishing complements, and then give the students the information in the preceding paragraph.
     Distinguishing the types of complements is not really necessary in order to understand the syntactic connections in a sentence. It is, however, very important for helping students understand the logic of sentence structure. Most important of all is an understanding of predicate nouns. A predicate noun in some way equals the subject. (That is how KISS teaches it. See the instructional material.) Students, however, often use the pattern improperly. One student, for a simple example, wrote, “The practice room is the only time I can get away.” But a room is not a time. Thus the primary reason for having students distinguish the types of complements is to help them keep the logic of their writing clear. 
     I might note, by the way, that S/V/PN patterns are also the expected beginning sentences of formal definitions. In upper level courses, some students lose a lot of credit because, when asked to define a term, they will explain what it does, where it is, why it works, but they never give the instructor the required information regarding what it is.
     If you are working with randomly selected texts, tell students that there are some complements that you expect them to miss. Among these are infinitive phrases:

Susan playedbaseball (DO) in the morning, tennis (DO) in the afternoon, and soccer (DO) in the evening.

     Many students strongly resist learning to use an instructional sequence -- a set series of questions -- to arrive at the answer to a problem. This has been noted by Arthur Whimbey in Blueprint for Educational Change, by Jane Healy in Endangered Minds, and by many others. Failure to master the very idea of using a process to figure out the answer to a problem accounts in large part for the problems that students have with math. (Remember how math teachers typically insist that students "show their work"?) As Art Whimbey notes, "strong" students break any task down into steps; "weak" students think that one either knows the answer or one does not.
     In Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think--and What We Can Do About It, Jane Healy discusses the following question (p. 189):

As the figure notes, "Only 6.4% of the 17-year-olds could solve multi-step problems like this one." 
     The point here is that simply understanding the importance of solving multi-step problems is a foundation stone of a good education. In some cases, as in math and in KISS Grammar, students can actually be given the specific series of steps. Note that in the math problem above, however, that students have to figure it out for themselves. By giving students the specific steps, and by forcing students to learn and use those steps, KISS can both make such problems easier and help students understand the importance of using steps to solve problems.
     In the teaching of writing, "the writing process" has been a major focus for the last two decades. Most weak writers believe that writing a paper is a one-shot deal. One simple sits down and writes it. Good writers, however, know that good writing requires a process -- brainstorming, tentative outlining, drafting, revising, perhaps more brainstorming, revising again, and finally editing. It is, however, one thing to "teach" the process; getting students to use it is something entirely different. 
     Some of my college Freshmen have explained that resistance to process results from laziness, irresponsibility, or the distraction of too many college parties. Some educators have argued that our educational system itself reinforces the belief in facts -- the "right" answers. Perhaps many students logically use this focus on facts to justify their resistance to learning a process. After all, if the answers are what are important, why waste time and effort learning a process? A process is not an answer.
     I have belabored this point because in KISS Level 1.2, students should be encouraged to learn the first of several processes (sets of steps) that make grammar much easier to understand. If, in other words, you can convince students to learn and use these steps, you may be able to convince them that other processes (in math, writing, etc.) can also be very useful. In still other words, you may be able to teach students how to think better.

      As noted above, KISS Level 1.3 is the first of many KISS Levels that really depend on students learning how to use a multi-step approach to getting the "right" answer. In fact, this level includes two steps, the second of which itself is a series of steps. The first step is to identify complements as complements. To identify complements, students need to memorize and learn to use the following:

 To find a complement of a verb, ask the question "whom or what?" after the verb.

1. If nothing answers the question "Verb + whom or what?", the pattern is S/V. [STOP: You have your answer.]
2. If the word that answers the question describes the subject, the pattern is S/V/PA. [STOP: You have your answer.]
3. If the word that answers the question is a noun (or pronoun) that renames the subject and the verb implies an equality or identity between subject and complement, the pattern is S/V/PN. [STOP: You have your answer.]
 4. If a word or construction answers the question is not a predicate noun or predicate adjective, it has to be an indirect or direct object. An indirect object indicates the person "for" or "to" whom something is done. [STOP: You have your answer.]
5. Any other complement has to be a direct object.

     Ideally students should start by studying the instructional materials for both identifying complements and for identifying their type. Personally, I would not ask students to memorize the instructional material before they start doing exercises. Simply let them use the instructional material as they do the first few exercises -- most students will probably absorb the sequence in this way. At some point, however,  you may want to give a quiz to see if they have it. The answers to such a quiz can be "short-hand" -- "describes subject = PA" etc.
     Because some students have trouble both with multi-step procedures and with limiting the question for a complement to "whom or what?" you may want to separate instruction into two parts.  Thus, you can have the students simply label complements as "C" in a few exercises. Once students are fairly comfortable with identifying complements as complements, give them the sequence for identifying the types of complements.
     In either case, you will probably find that all students will learn faster if you review two or three exercises in class. Indeed, some students will not learn to use the procedure unless you use it to review some exercises in class. Many students also like to use the KISS Grammar Game. (See "An Overview of the Types of KISS Exercises," in the Background Essays.)
      Impress upon students the importance of working systematically. Systematic thinking is another skill that many students lack. Students should first find the verb, then the subject(s) of that verb, then any complements for that verb. Then they should check for any other verbs in the sentence. If there is one, they should underline it, find its subject(s) and its complement(s). If there are none, they should go on to the next sentence. (Once they add prepositional phrases to their analytical toolboxes, students should begin by finding all the prepositional phrases in a sentence first, and then the verb/subject/complement patterns.)
     A systematic approach to one’s task is a key characteristic of good thinking. It will also make it much easier to understand sentence structure. If you do not emphasize systematic thinking, you will find that many students will underline a verb here, a subject three sentences further into the text, etc. In essence, they will be looking to identify individual words rather than patterns. Pattern recognition is another major skill of good thinkers. Don't forget to remind the students that there are mistakes that they are expected to make at this level.

     If you have students analyze randomly selected texts, including samples of their own writing, you will run into another problem that is rarely, if ever, discussed in grammar textbooks. Consider the following two sentences: 

1. He was worried about the game. 
2. The Eagles were defeated by the Patriots.

     Exercise One (a-d) present students with sentences that have a mix of complements. If you can get students to remember and use the analytical process, you should be able to skip exercises two through six, each of which focuses on a specific type of complement. 
     Exercise seven ("Verbs as Subjects or Complements") introduces students to relatively simple sentences such as "Swimming is good exercise." or "They like hiking." Technically, "Swimming" and "hiking" are verbals (verbs that function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs), but students do not need to know that yet. (Distinguishing finite verbs from verbals is the focus of KISS Level 2.1.6.) But even very young students, if they analyze their own writing, will run across sentences in which a verbal functions as a subject or a complement. Thus the purpose of this exercise is to introduce the idea. In sentences such as "Swimming is good exercise," most students will automatically guess that "Swimming" is the subject. Thus this exercise simply confirms that they are right.
     Exercise eight is on the "predicate adjective or part of the verb" problem. Nine invites students to write sentences using various types of complements. Ten presents a passage for analysis (as opposed to isolated sentences). Eleven is a "Just for Fun" practice exercise.

     Remember that the on-line section for this KISS Level includes additional exercises (most of which are used in other grade-level books). Another excellent way of teaching students is to have them make similar exercises for their classmates, preferably based on what they are reading. Finally, to end this KISS Level, have students analyze a short passage of their own writing.
 

Emphasizing the Analytical Process [For teachers and parents]

The following exercises include detailed, lengthy, and very repetitive analysis keys. These keys illustrate that the very repetitiveness of the process should make it automatic for students. These exercises take the analysis through clauses so that teachers can see, and explain to their students, how the identification of the words in S/V/C patterns makes the identification of clauses much easier.

Twelve Sunday School Jokes Notes No. 1 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 2 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 3 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 4 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 5 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 6 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 7 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 8 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 9 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 10 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 11 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses - No. 12 Prep Phrases S/V/C Clauses -

Text

From "The Fishhawk," McGuffey's Second Reader

Notes

Part One	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Notes	-
Part Two	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Notes	-
Part Three	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Notes	-