1. If I saw this type of fragment in the writing of a seventh grader, I might worry about it, but in the writing of a fourth grader, I would simply ignore it. Note that it comes at the end of a sequence of very short sentences, each of which lists a family member. This type of listing is, as either Hunt or O'Donnell noted, typical of young writers. They will outgrow it -- and probably the associated fragment -- naturally. Let's not interfere with Mother Nature. (See also the discussion of fragments in the accompanying essay.)

2. Students working at this level will recognize "My brother" as a fragment. (Thus, I have counted it here as a subject.) Whether it is an acceptable or unacceptable fragment is something that I would let the class discuss. (Personally, I would never tell a fourth grader that a fragment such as this is unacceptable. It almost functions as a subtitle, and will probably be naturally outgrown.)

3. Here again I don't see any real problem with the two fragments. The subjects are easily understood, and, to me, repeating the understood "I" makes the sentences worse, not better. The same is true about combining the sentences -- "I try to be myself all though the day, and try to my best each and every day, and care for everybody else." Doing this, moreover, would create a 23-word main clause, more than twice as long as the longest main clause in the passage (eleven words), and four times as long as the 5.6 words/main clause average of the sample. Expecting this writer to do this combining is simply expecting far more than this writer's short-term memory is currently capable of handling.

4. Here, students who have been analyzing passages for clause structure should note the problem. Does the subordinate clause fragment belong with the main clause that precedes it, or with the one that follows it?  If the students themselves do not notice it, the teacher should point out the difference in meaning. If the "When" clause goes with "It is really messy," then the writer means that only the upstairs is messy. If, on the other hand, it goes with "On the left you see the kitchen," then the implication is that the entire house is messy.

5. As in Note #4, students will see "And the living room" as a fragment. The KISS psycholinguistic model explains why this fragment is a problem. (Having seen the period after "kitchen," the reader dumps the contents of STM to long-term memory, clears STM, and expects a new subject. As a result, the reader will interpret "living room" as a subject and expect it to be followed by a verb -- "And the living room is ...." When this doesn't happen, the reader becomes confused.) The same is true of the fragments that appear a little later -- "The linen closet.  And supply closet."