Download verbs. - Amy Benjamin

Engaging Grammar: Practical Advice for Real Classrooms
Presented by Amy Benjamin
Today’s visuals are available at
www.amybenjamin.com
Today’s Agenda:
Introduction
Teaching Parts of Speech (and using what students know about
parts of speech to enrich the writers’ conversation)
Teaching Sentence Completeness
Sentence Renovation
Code-switching: Informal or Formal Engish
….Other issues of interest
“ I’ve never known a person
who wasn’t interested in language.”
-Steven Pinker, The Language
Instinct
I
teaching grammar.
I never “really” learned it.
Shouldn’t they already
have had this in the
lower grades?
Do kids really have to learn
all these terms?
I loved it! I thought
diagramming sentences
was fun!
There’s no interesting
way to teach grammar.
It’s just drill and workbook.
M
Prescriptivists
Descriptivists
Students struggle with going from speech
to writing, and then from informal
to formal style.
Seeing Grammar With New
Eyes
Visuals
Manipulatives
Role-Play
Problem-solving
Wordplay
Inquiry
Respect for Language Change and Variation
Inductive Reasoning
High Level of Student Engagement
I.
Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers.
He advocated for them. He did not
encourage violence. He led a boycott
instead of violence. The boycott was an
effective method of resistance. (30)
III.
Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm
workers, helped them not by
encouraging violence, but by leading
a boycott. The boycott was an effective
method of resistance. (25)
II.
Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers,
and he advocated for them. He did not
encourage violence. He led a boycott
instead of violence, and the boycott
was an effective method of resistance.
(32)
Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm
workers, helped them not by
encouraging violence, but by leading
a boycott, an effective
method of resistance. (22)
Grammar is the most significant
determiner of sophisticated style.
Grammar is a system of making sentences out of parts.
The parts have to match (agree):
Number (singular or plural)
Gender (masculine, feminine, neutral)
Case (subjective, objective, possessive)
Tense (past, present, future; progressive
perfect)
The two main parts of language are nouns and verbs.
Everything else either modifies nouns or verbs or joins words,
phrases, and clauses.
GRAMMAR IN THE HEART OF THE WRITING PROCESS:
Pre-writing
experience:
(non-sentence
form)
Drafting
Sharpen your nouns
Minimize your modifiers
Replace BE verbs and weak verbs with strong
action verbs
Achieve parallel structure
Combine sentences: create complex sentences
use appositives
use absolutes
Expand and shrink noun phrases. Turn clauses
into modifying phrases. Decide where
to place modifiers for desired effect.
Revising
Publication
Editing
Point of
intervention for
substantial
language
improvement
Point of
intervention
for surface
error correction
Powerful you have become. The dark side I
see in you.
Grave danger you are in. Impatient you are.
Not if anything to say about it I have.
The boy you trained, gone he is.
When 900 years I reach, look as good as you I will not.
Lost a planet Master Obi-Wan has.
Inversions: The subject-verb link is presented last.
Noun: Owner’s Manual
Congratulations on your wise purchase of a NOUN. Your NOUN may be
used to fit into the following frame:
The____________.
Your NOUN is used to name people, places, things, ideas, qualities, states of
mind, and all kinds of other things that need naming.
Your NOUN may be easily converted into an adjective. All you have to do is put
another NOUN after it and have it make sense. (COW pasture, for
example).
Your NOUN may be the kind of NOUN that can be made plural. Only NOUNS
may be made plural.
Your NOUN may be able to be made possessive by adding ‘s. Only NOUNS
may be made possessive. When you make your NOUN possessive, it
becomes an adjective.
You may add all kinds of modifiers before and after your NOUN. You may
replace your NOUN along with its modifiers with a pronoun.
Feel free to use your NOUN as a subject, direct object, indirect object, object
complement, object of a preposition, appositive, or predicate noun
Your noun may be called a nominal when we consider it together with its modifiers.
My Noun Palette
Proper Nouns:
Concrete Nouns:
Abstract Nouns:
-tion,-sion,-ism,-ence, -ance,
-ness, -ment, -itude
Adjective: Owner’s Manual
Congratulations on your wise purchase of an ADJECTIVE. Your ADJECTIVE may
be used to fit into the following frame:
The______________truck. Or The truck was very_________.
Your ADJECTIVE likes to answer the question What kind?
If your ADJECTIVE doesn’t fit into either of these frames, maybe it is the kind of
ADJECTIVE that answers the questions Which one? or How many?
Your ADJECTIVE may be capable of using the suffixes –er in the comparative form
and –est in the superlative form. (If your ADJECTIVE doesn’t like these
suffixes, just use more and most to accomplish comparison or superiority.)
Your ADJECTIVE reports to your NOUN, and your NOUN can easily become an
ADJECTIVE to another NOUN.
Often, groups of words decide to get together and do ADJECTIVE-like work. We
call such groups of words ADJECTIVALS, and they may be phrases or clauses
that operate just like ADJECTIVES, answering those questions that
ADJECTIVES answer.
Verb: Owner’s Manual
Congratulations on your wise purchase of a VERB. Your VERB may be used to fit into
the following frame:
To______________.
Your VERB is the part of the sentence that is capable of turning the sentence into a
negative. It is also the part of the sentence that changes when you add yesterday or
right now. (If your sentence does not change when you add yesterday to it, then your
sentence is in the past tense. If your sentence does not change when you add right
now to it, then it is in the present tense.)
Your VERB may be an action verb or a linking verb. Action verbs may take direct objects
and are modified by adverbs. Linking verbs take predicate nouns and predicate
adjectives. You can easily find a list of linking verbs.
Your VERB may take auxiliaries (forms of have, be) and modal auxiliaries (could, should,
would, can, will, shall, may, might, must).
Your VERB sometimes uses a form of the word do to create a sentence, to emphasize,
to negate, or to stand in for itself, as in: Do you think so? Yes, I do.
Adverb: Owner’s Manual
Congratulations on your wise purchase of an ADVERB. Your adverb may be
used to tell where, when, or how.
•
Adverbs that tell where may be replaced by the word there: We drove south
for two miles. (We drove there for two miles.)
•
Adverbs that tell when may be replaced by the word then: We ate lunch
late.
(We ate lunch then.)
Adverbs that tell how often end in –ly and may be replaced by the words like
this: He joined the team eagerly. (He joined the team like this.)
You may move your adverbs around in the sentence. If you do, you’ll want to
set them off with commas.
Often, groups of words decide to get together to do ADVERB-like work, and
when they do, we call these groups of words ADVERBIALS. ADVERBIALS
may be phrases or clauses that do the work that adverbs do.
Two Categories of Words in
English
Form Class Words:
Structure Class Words:
Noun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Determiners (aka
articles: a, an, the)
Intensifers
Pronouns
Interjections
Jabberwocky
‘Twas
brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
Morphology Chart
NOUNS:
VERBS:
The____________
To__________
ADJECTIVES:
The_________truck
ADVERBS:
Do it_________
It’s easier to understand parts of speech than you think. Simply use the cues above.. Not all words
follow the same morphology. It’s interesting to see how words morph into different forms.
This “Morphology Kit”
is a great way to
expand vocabulary
because most
Noun-Making
of the words
created by
Suffixes
these suffixes
express abstract
ideas.
Morphology Kit
-ment
-ness
-ation, sion
-ity
-ism
-hood
-itude
-ence
-ance
-ide
Verb-Making Suffixes Adjective-making
suffixes
-ate
-ify
-ize
-acious,icious
-y
-ous, ious
-ant
-able, ible
-er; est
Adverb-making suffix:
-ly
5
Prepositions
Six Reasons for Teaching
Prepositions:
1. Prepositions add time and place detail to sentences
2. Students can vary their sentence structure and set the stage for
a sentence by beginning some sentences with prepositions.
3. Students can add power to their writing by ending paragraphs with a
prepositional phrase. (Conversely: Students can avoid ending sentences
with prepositions so that their sentences are not weak or too informal.)
4. Students can avoid subject-verb agreement errors by recognizing
prepositional phrases that intervene between the subject and the verb, as in
“A box of matches (is, are) on the kitchen table.”
5. Students can create parallel structure by repeating prepositional phrases
deliberately.
6. Students can select the appropriate pronoun case as the object of
a preposition. (between you and me; for Joe and me)
Sentence Patterns
S-V
S-V-O
Rocks explode. Lizards like rocks.
S-V-SC
Lizards are lazy.
A frog is on the rock.
Salamanders are
amphibeans.
S-V: Subject-Verb: This pattern uses an intransitive verb. Intransitive verbs take
no direct object.
S-V-O: Subject-Verb-Object: This pattern uses a transitive verb. Transitive verbs
take direct objects. (Direct objects answer “Who?” or “What?” They are
used with action verbs only.
S-V-SC: Subject-Verb-Subject Complement: This pattern uses a linking verb.
Linking verbs require some kind of subject complement to finish the
thought. Subject complements can be nouns, adjectives, or
prepositional phrases.
Action verbs are modified by adverbs.
bouncy
shy
friendly
shyly
vivaciously
protectiveprotectively
Pepper is… recklessly
hungry
silly
Pepper behaves…
Pepper acts…cautiously
jovially
Pepper looks..l
Pepper seems…
Pepper became…
playfully playful
adventurously
curiously
Linking verbs are completed
by adjectives.
adventurous
curious
Linking verbs
tell the nature of
things.
Linking verbs: BE, + sense verbs: look, sound, smell, feel; seem verbs: seem appear,
become, grow
Pattern 1, subject + verb
Rocks explode.
Rocks
explode.
Pattern 1, subject + verb
Ghosts walk.
Fish swim.
Penguins waddle.
Balloons pop.
The elephant swaggered.
The ice cream melted.
The strawberry ice cream cone with the cherry on top of it melted.
The verb in a Pattern 1 sentence does not
have to be the last word of the sentence.
Happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow.
bluebirds
fly
rainbow.
Pattern 2:
Subject + Verb + Direct Object
Everybody loves Raymond.
Everybody
loves
Raymond.
A DIRECT OBJECT answers the question “Who?” or “What?” to the verb.
DIRECT OBJECTS apply only to action verbs (not linking verbs).
Pattern 2:
Subject + Verb + Direct Object
We ate pepperoni pizza.
We
ate
pizza.
Transitive verbs are verbs that take direct objects.
DIRECT OBJECTS apply only to action verbs (not linking verbs).
Pattern 3:
Subject + Verb + Subject Complement
Elephants are mammals.
Elephants
are
mammals.
When the subject complement is a noun (or pronoun), it RENAMES the
subject and the sentence is reversible. (Mammals are elephants.) We use
the “back-slash” to indicate that the subject complement refers back to the
subject.
lions
lions
eat
are
meat
carnivores
Pattern 3:
Subject + Verb + Subject Complement
Elephants are pretty .
Elephants
are
pretty.
A few other verbs sometimes get treated like linking verbs: look, feel, sound, smell,
taste, become, grow, appear
Sentence Workout:
Step One: Explain what is happening in your picture.
Step Two: Now, experiment with many different ways to write your sentence:
Ex: Begin with There is/ There are____________.
Don’t begin with the or a.
Write a yes/no question.
Write a Who? or What? or When? or Where? or Why? question.
Write a sentence that has an -ING word.
Write a sentence that does not use IS or ARE or WAS or WERE.
Write a sentence that uses BECAUSE in the middle. Reverse that
sentence to have BECAUSE as the first word.
Write a sentence that use SO in the middle.
Write a sentence that needs two commas.
Write a sentence for each of the three sentence patterns:
Subject + Verb.
Subject + Verb + Object.
Subject + Verb + Complement.
Now Entering the Complete Sentence Zone:
The “Guess What!” test
How it works: Say “Guess What!” in front of
a group of words. If the group of words
tells you “guess what!” then
you have a complete sentence!
Now Entering the Complete Sentence Zone:
Test Two: The “They believed that…” test
How it works: Say “They believed that…” in front of
a group of words. If the group of words
makes sense when you say “They believed that…”
in front of it, then you have a complete sentence!
Now Entering the Complete Sentence Zone:
Test Three: The “Yes/No Question” test
How it works: Can you turn your group of words into
a question that can be answered with YES or NO?
If you can, then your group of words is a complete
sentence.
Phrase, Clause, Sentence
A phrase is two or more words that go
together (without being a sentence). There
are noun phrases and verb phrases. Once
we have both a noun and a verb, then
we have a clause.
A clause is a group of words that
may or may not be a complete
sentence. If a clause can stand alone as
a sentence, then we call it
an independent clause. (If a clause
cannot stand alone as a sentence,
then we call it a subordinate clause.
Why run-ons?
Run-ons result from the improper joining of independent
clauses.
When independent clauses are
joined by JUST a COMMA, we
call that kind of run-on a COMMA SPLICE.
To fix a comma splice,
just add and, but, so, or
a semicolon.
How do you know if you have a
run-on?
Try your favorite sentence test.
A clause is a group of words that
may or may not be a complete
sentence. If a clause can be a
complete sentence, then we call it
an independent clause.
Listen carefully for the point at which the
information in each independent clause ends.
The Sentence-Making Kit
Fold a 5 x 8 index card in half, width-wise:
Guess
What!
1.
They
believed
that…
2.
Yes/no
question
3.
The Sentence-Making Kit
On the inside of the card:
AAAWWUBBIS:
although, as, after
while, when
until
because, before
if, since
If a sentence begins
with any of these words,
it must have two parts.
Place a comma between
the two parts if one of
these words begins
the sentence.
These words, plus the comma, may join
,and two sentences. Writers sometimes begin
,but sentences with these words if they are
,so
doing so for emphasis.
Use as many
These words will help you
ACTION VERBS as possible.
give detail in your sentences:
Try beginning some of your
Use words and groups of words that
sentences with these words:
answer the ADVERB QUESTIONS:
IN
FOR
ON WITH
When? Where? Why? How?
AT
To what extent? How often?
Flip the switch into formal English:
a lot = a great many or a great deal
gonna= going to
wanna= want to
hafta= have to
get,got = become, became, receive
received, obtain, obtained
gotta: must
The Sentence-Making Kit
On the back of the card:
Substitutions for homophones and spelling problems:
their = his
there = here
they’re = they are
your = his
you’re = you are
its = his
it’s = it is; it has
I before E except after C
Or when sounded as A
As in neighbor or sleigh
woman = man
women = men
Informal
Formal
Informal and Formal English
Set your dial to the level of
formality that is appropriate
for your audience and purpose.
Informal and Formal English
Set your dial to the level of
formality that is appropriate
for your audience and purpose.
Handout: Page 11
Informal and Formal
backpack
briefcase
flip-flops
dress shoes
McDonald’s
sit-down restaurant
frisbee on the
lawn
football on the team
snack
zapping/nuking
lunch
cooking, baking, roasting
A Pronoun Poem
As Mom and I walked homewardly,
A puppy followed her and me.
Both she and I were quick to see
He had adopted Mom and me.
At home we showed him where to pee
And where the doggy bed would be.
Then Mom and I made lunch for three,
A feast for him and Mom and me.
from Woe is I Jr: The Younger Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. by Patricia T. O’Connor and Tom Stiglich.
Use of Modifiers
• Why should we teach modifiers?
• How should we teach modifiers?
lovely
the
princess
the lovelythe
princess
of princess
Romania
When
the frog
the lazy
frog
the laziest frog in the bayou
kissed
,
he turned into
a handsome
prince.
a charming,
handsome
prince
a charming, handsome prince who had no
outstanding debts.
Expansion 1: Add pre-noun modifiers
Expansion 2: Add post-noun modifiers
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY
SUBJECT
VERB
Her mother seemed
SUBJECT COMPLEMENT
to know the truth.
from Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson, 1994.
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY
SUBJECT
VERB
Her mother seemed
SUBJECT COMPLEMENT
to know the truth..
,although Hatsue didn’t know it,
Subordinate Clause
from Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson, 1994.
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY
SUBJECT
VERB
SUBJECT COMPLEMENT
Her mother seemed
to know the truth..
,dark with rage,
Adjective + Prepositional Phrase
from Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson, 1994.
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY
SUBJECT
VERB
SUBJECT COMPLEMENT
Her mother seemed
to know the truth..
,shrinking with age,
Adjective (Participle) + Prepositional Phrase
from Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson, 1994.
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY
SUBJECT
VERB
Her mother seemed
SUBJECT COMPLEMENT
to know the truth..
,a traditional and stoic woman,
Appositive (additional noun information)
from Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson, 1994.
EXPANSION OPPORTUNITY
SUBJECT
Their marriage
VERB
SUBJECT COMPLEMENT
had <largely> been
about sex.
,she understood after Carl was gone,
from Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson, 1994.