Download Grammar SkillBuilder: Participial Phrases

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Daughter of Invention (page 678)
Grammar SkillBuilder: Participial Phrases
Key Concept: Writers use participial phrases to add details and to vary their
sentences. Because participial phrases are verb forms, they give a sense of action
to writing.
Participial Phrases
A participle is a verb form used as an adjective to modify a noun or pronoun. A
participial phrase consists of a participle and its modifiers. Participles have two
forms: the present participle (working) and the past participle (worked). The
past participle can be used with auxiliary verbs (having worked).
The sentence below includes both past and present participles. The first participial
phrase modifies newspaper; the second and third modify glasses.
“On his side of the bed my father would be conked out for an hour already, his
Spanish newspaper draped over his chest, his glasses propped up on his
bedside table, looking out eerily at the darkened room like a disembodied
guard.”
Activity
Combine each pair of sentences, changing one of them into a participial phrase.
Underline the participial phrase.
Example: Julia Alvarez relates stories of her old life in the Dominican Republic. She
has won awards for her writing.
Rewritten: Award-winning writer Julia Alvarez relates stories of her old life in the
Dominican Republic.
1. My sisters and I battled with our parents. We were trying to become Americans.
2. Other students threatened us. My sisters and I decided we didn’t want to go to school.
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3. My mother sat on her side of the bed. She would make detailed drawings of her latest invention.
4. As my mother burst into my room, I cried out. I had lost the delicate strand of thought I was
putting on paper.
5. I was annoyed by the interruption. I tried, nevertheless, to guess at her new invention.
6. Mami saw something unbelievable in the paper. She let out a yelp.
7. My father was startled awake by her cry. He thought immediately that they were not safe.
8. My mother pointed to the newspaper. She focused our attention on the suitcase
with wheels.
9. Sister Mary Joseph asked me to deliver the teacher’s day address at school. She thought
she was doing me a favor.
10. Whitman’s poems inspired me. I wrote the speech that enraged my father.
UNIT FOUR ALL IN THE FAMILY 43