ADJECTIVES Describing Things

Adjectives: Help with Details and Descriptions Consider the following sentence: “The dog jumped on the man.” What does the dog look like in your mind’s eye? What does the man look like? Do you think your mental picture is the same as the one the person next to you has? Why or why not?

Adjectives The sentence on the previous slide was missing adjectives. An Adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. They answer the questions “What kind?” “Which one?” and “How many?” Our original sentence could be rewritten: “The small, white, shaggy dog jumped on the tall and serious man.” Which words tell us more about the dog? Which words tell us more about the man? Adjectives are said to modify or describe the nouns they tell us more about. (So “small” modifies “dog” in our rewritten sentence, for example.)

Where can I put an adjective in a sentence? Adjectives can be placed in two different locations. Location 1: Before the word the adjective is modifying. Examples: Angry man Green car Late bus Location 2: After a linking verb. Example: The man is angry. (“Angry” modifies “man.”) Example: The flower smells good. (“Good” modifies “flower.”)

Two More Rules About Adjectives “Good” is an adjective. Only use it when you are describing a noun or pronoun. Example: “He sings good.” This is incorrect because “good” is modifying “sings,” which is not a noun or pronoun. The correct sentence is “He sings well.” When adjectives occur in a list, try reading the list with “and” in between each of the adjectives. If the “and” sounds natural, you need a comma. If the “and” does not sound natural, you do not need a comma. Example: He is a retired English teacher. (“He is a retired AND English teacher” sounds strange, so there is no comma.) Example: It was a gray, cloudy day yesterday. (“Gray AND cloudy” sounds natural, so you need a comma.)

Comparatives – things that are __ than __ Many adjectives have two additional forms that help us to make comparisons. The comparative form compares two people or things to each other. Example: Joan is smarter than her sister is. To make a comparative adjective: For words of one or two syllables, add –er to the base of the adjective. For words with three or more syllables, put the word “more” before the base adjective. Example: “The house was more beautiful after it had been remodeled.” NEVER use “more” and the –er ending at the same time. I am more smarter than the person who wrote this sentence.

Superlatives – things that are the most! A superlative adjective singles out one individual from a group of three or more. He is the slowest runner on the team. To make a superlative adjective: For words of one or two syllables, add –est to the base of the adjective. For words with three or more syllables, put the word “most” before the base adjective. Ex: “That was the most delicious meal I have ever eaten.” Once again, NEVER use the word “most” and the –est ending at the same time.

Practice Time: Adjectives Exercise 7-3 – page 157-8

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Adverbs An adverb is a word that describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. The track star runs quickly. (“quickly” modifies the verb “runs”) The plate is extremely hot. (“extremely” modifies the adjective “hot”) The dog barks very loudly. (“very” modifies the adverb “loudly,” and “loudly” modifies the verb “barks”) Adverbs answer: How? When? Where? How often? To what extent? (How much?) Example of adverbs’ usefulness: “The girl smiled.” This is a sentence that is very much in need of adverbs. How did the girl smile? Shyly? Sneakily? Happily? Falsely? Slyly? Genuinely? Notice that many (but not all) adverbs end in –ly.

Rules for Adverbs Adverbs can be placed almost anywhere in a sentence, as long as the meaning of the sentence remains clear. Carefully, the students performed the experiment. The students carefully performed the experiment. The students performed the experiment carefully. Notice that adverbs only need to be followed by a comma when they occur at the beginning of a sentence.

Practice Time: Adverbs Exercise 7-7 – page 162

Readings About Bodies/Identity: “Scar” In-Class Review of Reading and Discussion: “Scar” In what ways to our bodies have an impact on our identity? Let’s brainstorm some of the different ways that things about our bodies can have an impact on how we see ourselves and the world around us.

Reading About Bodies and Identity: “Light Skin vs Dark Skin” What is “colorism”? According to the author, where did colorism come from and why did it start? How old was the author when she FIRST noticed the connection between skin color and beauty? How does this connect to our Essay Topic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EivX77ORIIs

Essay 1: Narrative and Description In this essay, you will use descriptive writing. (See p. 341) Ask “the reporter’s questions” Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How Constantly ask yourself, “What would someone who wasn’t there need to know?” Think about the attitude or feeling you want to get across in each part of your narrative and choose words and pieces of description that support that feeling.

Paragraph Outlining Practice (NOTE: this is not your official essay outline on the back of your prompt, just a practice paragraph outline) First, make a list of all of the different paragraph topics you might write about in your Identity Essay. Culture and Identity Language and Identity Body and Identity Pick one of the topics from your list and write a narrowed topic sentence with a controlling idea. Too Vague: “My culture has lots of interesting things about it.” Narrow and Specific: “In my subculture of science fiction fans, making costumes for conventions requires a lot of skill and gets the person who made the costume a lot of respect.” Make an outline for a paragraph that supports your topic sentence using both primary (examples) and secondary support (details about the examples).