Download We performed awesome!

NOUN = person, place, idea, or thing
 Common – general name Ex: car
 Proper – name of a particular person, place, or thing
Ex: Honda
 Concrete – a thing that can be experienced thru one of the 5
senses Ex: ice cream
 Abstract – idea, feeling, or quality Ex: happiness
 Collective – names a group Ex: class
 Singular – names one person, place, thing, or idea
Ex: man child
 Plural- names more than one person, place, thing, or idea
Ex: men children
 Possessive – shows ownership Ex: father’s
 Compound – two or more words working together to make a
single noun Ex: baseball
Why Nouns matter…
• Without using the
right noun and the
right kind of noun,
writing can be too
vague and/or not
make sense to the
reader.
• Every complete
sentence must have a
subject.
• Only nouns and
pronouns can play the
part of a subject in a
sentence.
PRACTICE:
Copy each sentence, underlining any nouns in the sentence and labeling the
type(s) of noun(s) for each.
1. The project to land astronauts on the moon was named
Apollo.
2. I was born on February 9, 1943.
3. I noticed that my sister’s purse had been left in the car.
4. I worked on my math project for three days!
5. My mom spends Sunday mornings clipping coupons from
the newspaper.
6. The players took the field and waited for the referee to
blow his whistle.
7. The students questioned the professor’s excitement about
the new set of pencils.
8. The mice waited for the lab assistant to place the Swiss
cheese in their cage.
Pronoun = takes the place of a noun
• Possessive – shows ownership
– Ex: me, mine, ours, yours, theirs
• Reflexive – refers back to the subject
– Ex: The girl dedicated herself to being the best.
• Interrogative – introduces a question
– Ex: who, whom, whose, what, which
• Demonstrative – points out a person, place, or thing
– Ex: this, that, these, those
• Indefinite – does not refer to a specific person, place, or
thing
– Ex: few, both, all, some, either, everybody, nobody, something, etc.
• Relative - Relative pronouns are that, who, whom, whose, which,
where, when, and why. They are used to join clauses to make a complex
sentence.
Every pronoun has an antecedent.
• My mother washed her car and then it rained.
“her” refers back to “mother”
Mother is the antecedent to her.
Pronouns must agree with their
antecedents
• In gender
• In number
• In “person” (first person, second person, third
person)
– Mike wanted _____ paycheck to be deposited.
– Teachers like _____ students to read.
– The visitors realized that _____ were hungry.
Why Pronouns Matter
• Readers get frustrated and may
give up if writing is too
confusing. To get ideas across,
the writer must be clear about
who is doing what.
Practice:
How many pronoun errors are in this paragraph? How should these be
corrected?
What if my brother and me were abandoned by my
entire community on our island home? How would us castoffs
survive? What would we do with ourself?
In Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O’Dell, the
heroine was left behind with her brother, who was soon killed
by wild dogs. It was her who remained on the island for
eighteen years. She tamed one of the island dogs herself and
named in Rontu; it’s friendship was invaluable to her.
Few of the people I know would take such good care of
himself or herself if left alone on an island. Even these who
know the wilderness might not have the mental strength to last
alone for such a long time. O’Dell’s heroine showed great skill,
courage, and patience. Whom else would be so strong?
VERBS ARE CRITICAL IN A
SENTENCE!
• Every sentence has to have a verb!
– You can get away with writing a sentence that
contains no nouns:
• Don’t do that. It’s dangerous and if you do it enough,
it’ll kill you!
• He likes her, but I like him more than she does.
• Listen closely to what I say and you’ll learn to write
right.
-If I try to write a sentence without a verb, it’s a fragment,
not a sentence.
•Yum. Good food. More cookies anywhere?
Verbs show action or state of
being
• Action = run, swim, jump, taste, fall, dream,
etc.
• State of being (linking verbs) = be, appear,
seem, feel, etc.
Be Verbs: is, am, are, was, were, be, being,
been
Examples of state of being verbs: feel, taste,
look, smell, appear, grow, remain, turn,
seem, sound, become
Action vs. linking
• The monkey looked hungry.
• The monkey looked for food.
• The soup tasted good.
• I tasted the soup.
• He grew tired of walking.
• He grew into a tall man.
Verb Tense: (When did it
happen?)
–Present : I run very fast.
–Past : I ran very fast.
–Future : I will run very fast.
Be careful to stay in the same
tense throughout your sentence.
• Weak –
I got home late and Mom
fusses at me for not
calling to let her know
where I will be.
I got home = past
Mom fusses = present
Where I will be = future
• Better –
I got home late and Mom
fussed at me for not
calling to let her know
where I had been.
Everything is in the past
tense.
Regular vs. Irregular Verbs
Regular Verbs follow a pattern
when moving from one tense
to another:
Today
Yesterday
Many times
Cook
Cooked
Cooked
Fix
Fixed
Fixed
Pick
Picked
Picked
Jump
Jumped
Jumped
Run
Ran
Ran
Sit
Sat
Sat
Walk
Walked
Walked
Irregular verbs sometime will
seem to follow a pattern, but
there is no steadfast rule:
Today
Yesterday
Many times
Grow
Grew
Grown
Know
Knew
Known
Throw
Threw
Thrown
Sell
Sold
Sold
Tell
Told
Told
Ride
Rode
Ridden
Slide
Slid
Slid
Take
Took
Taken
Sing
Sang
Sung
Fling
Flung
Flung
Some of the most troubling irregular verbs:
Today
Yesterday
Many times
Note:
Bite
Bit
Bitten or bit
Bring
Brought
Brought
Brang and brung
are not words
Drag
Dragged
Dragged
Drug is a noun – it’s
never a verb
Dive
Dived
Dove or dived
Drive
Drove
Driven
Forget
Forgot
Forgotten or forgot
Get
Got
Gotten or got
Hang
Hung
Hung
When the verb is used to
talk about hanging an
object like a picture
Hang
Hanged
Hanged
When the verb is used to
talk about hanging a
person
Hide
Hid
Hidden or hid
Hided is not a word
Drived is not a word
Caution – Major Mistake Territory!
Confusing lie and lay is probably the #1 mistake in the English language.
Lie is a “still” verb.
• People lie on beds.
• Dogs lie on people.
• Fleas lie on dogs.
The people, the dogs, and the
fleas are in a state of stillness.
TENSES:
Lie, lay, lain, lying
 Today I lie in bed.
 Yesterday I lay in bed.
 I have lain in bed many
times.
 Yesterday I was lying in bed
all day.
 Lying in bed all day is
boring.
Caution – Major Mistake Territory!
Confusing lie and lay is probably the #1 mistake in the English language.
Lay shows that the noun is
placing something and thus
being active
• A person picks up a hen
and lays it on the hay.
• A hen lays eggs.
• I picked up the eggs and
laid them in my basket.
TENSES: lay, laid, laid, laying
 Today I lay the book on the
counter.
 Yesterday I laid the book on
the counter.
 Many times I have laid the
book on the counter.
 Yesterday I was laying the
book on the counter.
 Laying books on the kitchen
counter is against the rules
in my house.
Can you find the mistakes?
• When I was a kid, I swang every day on an old tire my dad
hanged in a tree for me.
• I wish I’d waken up earlier.
• Adam breaks the dish when he tossed it to Omar who is
standing at the sink.
• If I was you, I’d buy that gorgeous dress.
• I’ve laid awake all night worrying about my math test.
• I’m sure I lay my assignment on the teacher’s desk yesterday.
Can you find the mistakes?
• When I was a kid, I swung every day on an old tire my dad
hung in a tree for me. Watch out for irregular verbs!
• I wish I’d (waked or woken) up earlier. Waken isn’t a word!
• Adam broke the dish when he tossed it to Omar who stood
at the sink. Keep all tenses the same in the sentence!
• If I were you, I’d buy that gorgeous dress. Listen to the way
the sentence sounds – your ear will tell you the correct way
most of the time.
• I’ve lain awake all night worrying about my math test.
Unless you were producing eggs while you were worrying,
you didn’t “laid” anything.  Remember – you are still in
this sentence.
• I’m sure I laid my assignment on the teacher’s desk
yesterday. Placing something somewhere is active. You
aren’t being still here.
Strong Verb Vs. Weak Verb
My sister hurt me
because I wouldn’t let her
sit by the window.
My uncle walked across
the yard.
My sister pinched a hunk
of my arm when I
wouldn’t let her sit by the
window.
My uncle zig-zagged
across the yard.
I sat in the chair.
I relaxed in the chair, dozing
from time to time.
Which verbs energize the sentences?
• Melanie weaseled her way into my heart, and later I cursed myself for
letting her in.
• Melanie weaseled her way into my heart, and later I cursed myself for
letting her in.
• As he kneaded the bread, he wished it were Harry’s face there on the
counter, in a convenient, doughy lump.
• As he kneaded the bread, he wished it were Harry’s face there on the
counter, in a convenient, doughy lump.
• She pounded the desk with a frozen fish and demanded complete silence
in the room.
• She pounded the desk with a frozen fish and demanded complete silence
in the room.
• Doug snapped the head off a match with his thumbnail.
• Doug snapped the head off a match with his thumbnail.
• Lenny snickered as Angela tiptoed into the room.
• Lenny snickered as Angela tiptoed into the room.
Practice:
Rewrite the sentence using a more vivid verb to
energize the sentence.
1.) Harold opened is mouth wide and bit off 12
square inches of pizza.
2.) The beauty queen walked up to the judges
and placed her crown on the table.
3.) Paula removed her mittens and threw them
into the fire.
4.) The pigeon sat on the dead branch.
5.) Walter walked into the den and fell flat on
his face.
Match up each of the weak verbs on the
left with a stronger option on the right.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pointed
Walked
Wrote
Poured
Yelled
Rubbed
Teased
Looked
Picked
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Scribbled
Howled
Scoured
Aimed
Bullied
Oozed
Peered
Harvested
Sauntered
As the can turns…
• You are a can of soda. You have been
popped, drained, smashed, bashed, and
trashed. Tell your story to your psychologist.
You are on the couch. Life has been hard.
Use vivid, interesting verbs to tell the tale of
your miserable aluminum life.
Adjective = a word that modifies, or
describes, a noun or pronoun
Adjectives answer questions about nouns
or pronouns:
What Kind?
A sudden blizzard
A brisk wind
A destructive flood
Which one(s)?
The first warning
The Mexican desert
The last day
How many/how
much?
Several students
A few times
More ice
Types of Adjectives
• Proper – formed from a proper noun and
always capitalized. Ex: English Tea,
Colombian Coffee, Italian Espresso
• Predicate – describes the subject of the
sentence (only appears after a linking verb)
Ex: The students are very intelligent.
• Articles – the most common adjectives
»A, an, the
Why Adjectives Matter…
• Adjectives can be used to supply important details
that make the writing more specific and clear.
Adjectives can allow a writer to convey a lot of
descriptive information in a single word.
A large dinner party is being given in an upcountry station by a colonial official and his
wife. The guests are army officers and
government leaders and their wives, and an
American naturalist. -”The Dinner Party” by Mona Gardner
Practice:
Rewrite the following passage adding adjectives to
make it more detailed and descriptive.
I just learned that fingerprints are not the
only markings that distinguish us. Did you
know that the patterns on our skin are also
unique? So don’t take off your shoes the
next time you rob the bank! Remember, the
police have methods to catch you!
What is an adverb?
• It is a word that describes a verb, an
adjective, or another adverb and tells these
things:
– Where: there, here, outside, inside, away
– When: now, then, later, immediately, yesterday
– How: quickly, slowly, stupidly, gracefully,
effortlessly
– How often or how long: frequently, never, twice,
sometimes
– How much: hardly, extremely, minimally, greatly,
too, more
You can make most adverbs by
adding an –ly to an adjective
Adjective
Adverb
Sad
Sadly
Kind
Kindly
Quick
Quickly
Tender
Tenderly
Noisy
noisily
Adverb mistakes can make your
writing sloppy. 
• What wrong with these sentences?
– Meg looks real good in her new dress.
– Simon turned the corner too quick and crashed.
– We played awesome in our game.
– I want to go to the game so bad I could scream.
So what’s the big deal?
What’s the difference between
an adjective and an adverb?
Adjective
Adverb
• Sad
• Kind
• Quick
• Tender
• Artistic
• Noisy
• Sadly
• Kindly
• Quickly
• Tenderly
• Artistically
• Noisily
Examples:
• This sentence is written awful bad.
(you are telling “how” it’s written – you
need an adverb!)
• This sentence is written awful badly.
(You need another verb to tell “how”
badly it’s written.)
• This sentence is not written awfully badly –
it’s perfect!
(And it’s grammatically correct! )
Which ones work?
• We performed awesome!
• Our performance was awesome!
• We performed really awesome.
• The awesome performance was great!
• We performed awesomely!
Some words can be either an adjective or an
adverb depending on how they’re used.
Adjective telling what kind
Adverb telling how, when, or where
He played a hard guitar piece.
He pounded the drums hard.
I flew past a high building.
I flew high in the sky.
We are close friends.
Sit close to me.
You’re doing a fine job.
You are skiing fine since your lesson.
He dug deep into the earth.
She dived deep into the water.
That’s the wrong answer.
The teacher said I spelled it wrong.
The best rule to remember:
• Use adverbs with action verbs.
• Use adjectives with linking verbs.
Ex:
She skates gracefully.
He sings well.
Tori is tired.
David was thirsty.
Mistakes? I’ve made a few…
1. The dog smells badly.
2. This is a real pretty dress.
3. What a nice gesture on your part to greet
them so nice when they arrived.
4. Josh’s mom hugged him real sweet and said,
“Enough grammar. Let’s eat cake!”
Take the teasing comb and back-comb all
your hair until it looks like an electrified
Persian cat. To tease your hair, grab a small
section and hold it up by the end. Comb
downward with the teasing comb in short fast
strokes until it gets tangled at the bottom.
Pull the teased hair up and out to achieve
maximum altitude. Liberally apply the hair
spray to hold the teased hair in place. If you
can still see the walls, you haven’t sprayed
enough. Spray more. All these styles must be
taken care of while you sleep. Some women use
the beehive hairnet; others use feather pillows
to sleep upon; while still others sleep upright in
the La-Z-Boy. Your mileage may vary. Just
be careful not to put anyone’s eye out.
Take the teasing comb and backcomb all your hair. To tease your
hair, grab a small section and hold it.
Comb downward. Pull the teased hair.
Liberally apply the hair spray. If you
can still see the walls, you haven’t
sprayed enough. Spray more. All
these styles must be taken care of
while you sleep. Some women use the
beehive hairnet; others use feather
pillows; while others sleep upright.
Your mileage may vary. Just be
careful not to put anyone’s eye out.
What’s the difference?
• The first passage is:
– more descriptive
– creates a visual
– Longer
How?
The first passage makes use of
prepositions!
Preposition
• A word that shows how a noun or pronoun
relates to another part of the sentence
• Ex:
My dog is lying to me.
My dog is lying next to me.
I am swimming toward the shark’s tummy.
I am swimming away from the shark’s tummy.
I am swimming inside the shark’s tummy.
Don’t overdo it
• Don’t use a bunch of prepositional phrases in
a row.
I went to a store in a town in Ohio in the middle of a flood in
June which is during Ohio’s rainy season, and in a matter of
minutes found myself knee-deep in water. 10 PREPOSITIONS
IN ONE SENTENCE! EEK!
Better:
Last June, I visited a small Ohio town during the rainy season.
When I went into a flooded store, I quickly found myself knee
deep in water. THAT’S ONLY 3 PREPOSITIONS. MUCH BETTER!
In doubt?
• If you are ever not sure whether a word is a
preposition or not, use this trick.
• If you can successfully put the word in the
blank of this sentence, it’s more than likely a
preposition:
The bird pooped ___________ the bush.
The bird pooped ________ the bush.
About
Against
At
Beneath
Down
From
instead of
Of
on top of
Past
Toward
above
along
before
beside
during
in
into
off
out of
since
under
across
among
behind
between
except
in front of
like
on
outside
through
underneath
after
around
below
by
for
inside
near
onto
over
to
until
Up
upon
with
within
How would prepositions help
these sentences?
• The dog barked.
• The car sped.
• The stairs were high.
Now how about a vivid verb and
some adjectives and/or adverbs?
• The dog barked.
• The car sped.
• The stairs were high.
Interjection
• is a big name for a little word.
• are short exclamations like Oh!, Um or Ah!
• They have no real grammatical value but we
use them quite often, usually more in
speaking than in writing.
• An interjection is usually followed by an
exclamation mark (!) when written.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Aha! There's my bookbag.
Argh! I messed that model up again!
Bravo! You managed not to fall this time.
Cheers! Hope your graduation goes great.
Ew, what a gross movie.
Gee, I wonder who that could be?
Hooray! Score one for the good guys.
Oops! That was your pet spider, wasn't it?
Ouch! Something bit me!
Whew! That was close! We almost got caught.
Wow! That airplane ride was awesome!
Conjunction Junction...what’s your
function?
• Conjunction Junction, what's your function?
Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.
Conjunction Junction, how's that function?
I got three favorite cars
That get most of my job done.
Conjunction Junction, what's their function?
I got "and", "but", and "or",
They'll get you pretty far.
-”Conjunction Juntion” from SchoolhouseRock
Coordination Conjunctions
FANBOYS
FOR AND
NOR BUT OR
YET SO
Coordination Conjunctions
• Coordinating conjunctions connect words,
phrases, and clauses.
• The bowl of squid eyeball stew is hot and delicious.
• The squid eyeball stew is so thick that you can eat it with a
fork or spoon.
• Rocky, my orange tomcat, loves having his head scratched but
hates getting his claws trimmed.
• Rocky terrorizes the poodles next door yet adores the German
shepherd across the street.
• A coordinating conjunction can join two main
clauses that a writer wants to emphasize
equally. The pattern for coordination looks like
this:
main clause + coordinating conjunction + main clause.
• In this case, you put a comma after the first
main clause (before the coordinating conj.)
While I am at work, my dog Floyd sleeps on the bed ,
and my cat Buster naps in the bathtub.
Coordinating Conjunctions joining
words
Two Items = no comma
• My dog Floyd has too many fleas and too much hair.
• My cat Buster has beautiful blue eyes but a
destructive personality.
Three or more items, put a comma before the
conjunction
• You need your book, notebook, and pencil.
Conjunction Junction, how’s that
function?
• Conjunction Junction, what's your function?
Hooking up two cars to one
When you say something like this choice:
"Either now or later"
Or no choice:
"Neither now nor ever"
Hey that's clever!
Eat this or that, grow thin or fat,
Never mind, I wouldn't do that,
I'm fat enough now!
• -”Conjunction Juntion” from SchoolhouseRock
Correlative Conjunctions
• Always travel together – like relatives
both . . . and
not only . . . but also
not . . . but
either . . . or neither . . . nor
whether . . . or
as . . . as
• Not only did Bob need bread, but he also had to
buy butter.
• Whether you like it or not, you will need to study.
Subordinating Conjunctions
• AAWWWUUBBIS
After although when where while until
unless
because before if since
Subordinating Conjunctions
• Come at the beginning of a dependent clauses
and establish the relationship between the
dependent clause and the rest of the
sentence. It also turns the clause into
something that depends on the rest of the
sentence for its meaning.
• He took to the stage as though he had been preparing for
this moment all his life.
• Because he loved acting, he refused to give up his dream of
being in the movies.
• Unless we act now, all is lost.
TIME TO SHOW
WHAT YOU
KNOW!