Download Paint with Action Verb Brush Strokes

Paint with Action Verb
Brush Strokes
What are action verbs?
 An action verb is a word that expresses
action.
 It may be made up of more than one
word.
 An action verb can be physical (shout,
arrive) or mental (memorize, forget).
Day 1
Examples
 The director shouts at the members of
the cast.
 The lights are flashing above the stage.
 The audience arrived in time for the
performance.
 Several singers have memorized the
lyrics of a song.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 2
Day 2
Day 2
Specific and General
Nouns
What is a noun?
 A noun is a word that names a person, a
place, a thing, or an idea.
Examples
 Persons: sister, mayor, coach, children,
George Washington, Jessica Alba
 Places: park, lake, playground, city,
Houston, Alabama, America, France
 Things: magazine, boots, rose, peach,
Titanic, ship, Statue of Liberty
 Ideas: honesty, truth, democracy, pride,
maturity, progress, courage
How can you make this
sentence more specific?
The person jumped along the street.
Sally jumped along Sunset Boulevard.
Paint with Adjectives
Out-of-Order
What are adjectives?
 An adjective is a word that describes, or
modifies, a noun or a pronoun.
 They answer one of three questions:



What kind? We studied ancient history.
How many? I read four chapters.
Which one? That invention changed
history.
Paint with
Appositive Brush
Strokes
What is an appositive?
 An appositive is a noun that is placed
next to another noun to identify it or add
information to it.
 Appositives can appear anywhere in a
sentence as long as they are right next
to the noun they identify.
Examples
 James Madison’s wife, Dolly, was a
famous first lady.
 The noun, Dolly, tells us James
Madison’s wife’s name. Dolly is an
appositive.
 Notice how it is set off from the sentence
by commas. This is how we punctuate
appositives.
Examples, cont’d
 Sometimes you can use more than one
word to make an appositive.
 Madison, our fourth president, held many
other offices.
 “Our fourth president” tells us more
information about Madison and it is set
off by commas. “Our fourth president” is
an appositive.
Revising with Appositive Brush
Strokes
 If you have two sentences and one of
them has a being verb you can combine
them with an appositive in place of the
being verb.
Paint with Participle
Brush Strokes
What is a participle?
 There are two kinds of participles
present and past.


Present participles are verbs that end in –
ing.
Past participles are verbs that end in –d or
–ed.
 In order to use a participle as a brush
stroke the participle cannot be the main
verb in the sentence.
Examples
 Sitting quietly, Erik loses himself in the
music.
 Playing the piano, Eric taps his foot
along to the beat.
 Dreaming of fame, Eric sits at the piano.
 Lingering at the door, Brent waited for
his friend.
One word Participles
 Instead of using a phrase (Jumping in
place) you can use a combination of one
word participles at the beginning or end
of a sentence to create drama.
 Jumping in place, Mike skipped rope.
 Leaping, sweating, smiling, Mike skipped
rope.
Warning!
 Make sure that your participle brush
stroke comes right before or right after
the noun that you are describing.
 Singing, splashing, and laughing the
swimmer attracted the shark.
 The swimmer is the one singing,
splashing and laughing so it is the noun
closest to the participle brush stroke.
Warning! Cont’d
 Singing, splashing, and laughing, the
shark was attracted to the swimmer.
 Is the shark singing, splashing, and
laughing?
 MAKE SURE THAT YOU PUT THE
CORRECT NOUN NEXT TO YOUR
PARTICIPLE BRUSH STROKE!
Paint with Absolute
Brush Strokes
What is an absolute?
An absolute is a noun
followed by a verb that
ends in –ing.
Examples
Mind racing
Anxiety overtaking
Jaws cracking
Tongue curling
Examples Cont’d
Don’t think that you have
to stick to two words if
you have something more
involved in mind
Digits glowing florescent blue in
the inky darkness of my room,
my clock edged its way toward
midnight.
Notice that it still begins with a
noun and an –ing word
Helpful Hint!
It is always a good idea to
create your simple sentence
before adding your absolutes!
If you do this, then you know
that you have used your brush
stroke correctly!
Revising to add Absolute
Brush Strokes
Remember that when
revising you can combine a
few short sentences using
absolutes.
Helpful Hints when using
Brush Strokes
 Never use more than 3 brush strokes per
sentence.
 Try not to put more than 2 brush strokes right
next to each other.
 You don’t have to use brush strokes in every
sentence.
 Varying the types, location, and frequency of
the brush strokes will make your writing more
interesting.