1.8 Parts of Speech - Part Two
| Site: | Cowichan Valley School District - Moodle |
| Course: | ELA5, CSS, Sferrazza |
| Book: | 1.8 Parts of Speech - Part Two |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Sunday, 19 May 2024, 11:43 PM |
Pick Powerful Verbs
A verb is an action or a state of being.
You want to use powerful action verbs to make your descriptive writing pop.
Ex.) With her hands in fists, Vaya went across the street. (This works, but the verb could be stronger.)
Try instead...
With her hands balled in fists, Vaya stomped across the street. (You get a much more vivid image of Vaya crossing the road.)
Try to minimize your use of being verbs.
Ex.) The children are hungry. (This is - yawn - a bit boring to read.)
Try instead...
The children gobbled every morsel, licked their plates clean, and begged for seconds. (This is more active and interesting; it clearly shows the children are hungry.)
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Now go to your Descriptive Writing Journal and complete Journal #3: Concrete Nouns, Active Adjectives, and Vivid Verbs.
Learning Targets
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to say YES to the following questions.
- Can I identify key parts of speech and understand their importance?
- Can I create more vivid and interesting parts of speech to make my writing more descriptive?
Adverbs
An adverb describes a verb. It tells you how something is done. It can also tell you when or where something happened. Adverbs often end in –ly.
Example: The garter snake slithered swiftly into the safety of the fern foliage.
Example: Mei heroically dove for the baseball.
Example: The crow squawked crossly as the seagull greedily swallowed the piece of salmon.
Example: They are headed to Lillooet today.
Example: The cedar trees will be planted there.
Use adverbs to spice up your verbs and add more detail to your descriptive writing.
Go to your Learning Guide and complete, Help the Weak Sentences!
Prepositions
A preposition introduces information like where, when, or why something takes place. It connects more details to a sentence. Use prepositions to help beef up your descriptive writing with tasty details.
Example: Parminder drove. (This is a simple sentence and doesn’t tell us much.)
Parminder drove to grandma’s house in the space buggy. (The prepositions to and in help add on more details. Now we know where Parminder is going and by what method -- space buggy!)
Example: The dog barked. (This is pretty boring.)
The dog barked at the burglar breaking the window with a hammer. (at and with help add more details. Aha! Now we know why the dog is barking.)
Check out this list of prepositions.
Now go to your Learning Guide and complete Peppy Preposition Addition.
Conjunctions
A conjunction joins words, phrases, or sentences together. It makes a simple sentence more complex and interesting -- and this helps you create more complex and interesting descriptive writing.
Coordinating conjunctions join two ideas.
Remember the acronym FANBOYS:
for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Example: He polishes up quartz crystals. (a simple sentence)
He polishes up quartz crystals, so they can wink at the moon on a dark night. (This is a much more interesting sentence!)
- The Elevator Ghost by Glen Huser
Example: I smiled and nodded. (a simple sentence)
I smiled and nodded, but inside, my gut was churning. (Aha! So even though the character is smiling, they are feeling stressed.)
- I Owe You One by Natalie Hyde
Complete the task titled, Conjunction Creativity!
Use More Conjunctions
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A subordinating conjunction shows a relationship between two parts of a sentence.
Example: Ruaraidh was late for school. (This is a simple sentence.) Ruaraidh was late for school because his flying unicorn kept stopping to snack on rainbows. (Woah! That's a more complex and tasty sentence.) Now go to your Descriptive Writing Journal and complete "Journal #4: Active Adjectives, Prepositions, and Conjunctions". |
Review
The parts of speech are shown here with examples.
part of speech |
function or "job" |
example words |
example sentences |
| Verb | action or state | (to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must | BCLN is a web site. I like BCLN. |
| Noun | thing or person | pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John | This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in Kelowna. |
| Adjective | describes a noun | good, big, red, well, interesting | My dogs are big. I like big dogs. |
| Adverb | describes a verb, adjective or adverb | quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really | My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly. |
| Pronoun | replaces a noun | I, you, he, she, some | Tara is from Kamloops. She is beautiful. |
| Preposition | links a noun to another word | to, at, after, on, but | We went to the theatre on Monday. |
| Conjunction | joins clauses or sentences or words | and, but, when | I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats. |
Identify the part of speech in bold.
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I bought a beautiful dress at the mall.
- What did she ask you to do?
- I left my shoes under the kitchen table.
- If we finish our work quickly we can go to the movies.
- On Saturdays I work from nine to five.
- I want to go to a university in Victoria.
- Andy knocked on the door but nobody answered.
- After lunch let's go out for a coffee.
Adapted from https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/parts-of-speech.htm
Test Preparation
Now that you have learned all the parts of speech, it is time for a test. If you feel you need to study, ask your home facilitator to quiz you on what you've covered so far. Together, you can make cue cards, if you wish, with a question on the front and the answer on the back, or you can review your completed work together.