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Grammar, Usage and Mechanic
(GUM)
Unit 5: Storytelling
The House on Maple Street
Past, Present, and Future Verb Tenses
Verbs are words that tell about an action or state of being. They can be past, present or
future tenses.
 The present tense tells what is happening now or what happens all the time.
 The past tense tells what has already happened. The past tense of a verb is often
formed by adding –ed to the base word. Some verbs are irregular and their past
tense spellings must be memorized.
 The future tense tells what will happen later. The future tense is often formed
with the helping verb will.
Days of Digging
Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
A preposition is a word that tells about the position or direction of a noun or pronoun.
Prepositions: above, across, after, against, along, around at, before, behind, below,
beside, between, by, down, for, from, in, inside, into, like near, of, off, on, out,
outside, over, through, to, under, underneath, up, with, without
A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or pronoun. Articles
and adjectives can be between the preposition and the noun.
Ex: My cat sleeps in my room.
Earthquake! The 1906 San Francisco Nightmare
Sentence Tense
Verbs are words that tell about an action or state of being. They can be past, present or
future tenses. The tense of the sentence is determined by the tense of the verb.
Sometimes there are clue words in the sentence like yesterday, today, tomorrow, etc. that
helps you know the tense of the sentence.
Ex: The horses trot through the open pasture every morning. (present)
The horses trotted early yesterday morning. (past)
The horses will trot a little later into the evening. (future)
The Disappearing Island
Verb be and Irregular Verbs
The forms of the verb be include: am, are, is, was, were, being, been.
Ex: I am happy.
They were friends.
The verb be does not show action. It is a state of being verb. It tells what someone or
something is or is like.
Helping verbs help the main verb express an action. Forms of be can also be helping verbs.
Ex: I am running on Saturday.
They were playing golf today.
Verbs can be regular or irregular.
A regular verb is one whose past tense is formed by adding –ed to the base verb.
An irregular verb is one whose past tense is not formed by following the rule for adding –
ed to the base verb. The spelling of an irregular verb changes to form the past tense.
Some irregular verbs are spelled differently when they are used with the helping verbs
has, have and had.
Common Irregular Verbs
Present Tense: am, are, is, begin, come, do, draw, eat, fall, give, go, has, have, make, run,
say, see, seek, take, write
Past Tense: was, were, began, came, did, drew, ate, fell, gave, went, had, made, ran, said,
saw, sought, took, wrote
Past Tense with has, have or had: been begun, come, done, drawn, eaten, fallen, given,
gone, had, made, run, said, seen, sought, taken, written
What Ever Happened to the Baxter Place
Complex Sentences
Complex sentences can be created by combining an independent clause with a dependent
clause using a subordinating conjunction.
Ex: After they finished studying, Elias and Josh went to the game.
Independent clause: Elias and Josh went to the game.
Dependent clause: After they finished studying
Common Subordinating conjunctions: after, although, as, because, before, if, since, when,
where, while, until, unless
Ex: Scarlet and Jill took a long walk because it was a beautiful day.
A comma is used to join the dependent and independent clauses when the sentence begins
with a dependent clause.
Ex: Because we need to exercise, let’s go to the gym before dinner.
Independent and dependent clauses can also be joined with the relative pronouns who,
whose, which, and that.
Ex: We buy our produce from Frank’s Market, which is the best in town.
.