ESSAY 2 REVISIONS Grammar: Adjectives

Quickwrite: Tell me everything you know about what a good introduction does in an essay. Tell me everything you know about what a good conclusion does in an essay.

Essay 2 Advice: Apply EVERYTHING that we discuss in class today to the essays you are currently working on.

STOP. Grammar Time! Open Pronouns and Pronoun Agreement Power Point Also open the This That These Those Power Point when students return:

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, 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 and Superlatives 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.

Superlative 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.

Some Thoughts on Your Illustration Essays By writing this essay, you add your unique voice to a long-running conversation that deals with: The passage of time and the inevitability of change. Progress vs. nostalgia (idealized memories of the past) Two quotes to think about: “You can’t go home again.” (Title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe… means that once a person grows up and leaves, even if he or she returns home, it won’t be the home he or she remembers.) “You cannot step into the same river twice.” Heraclitus, Greek philosopher. (You may be the same person, but the water is different.) You may also recognize this from the disney movie Pocahontas)

Revising Your Illustration Essays Make sure that illustrations are specific and full of sensory details: “They built a lot of new stores and restaurants.” This sentence is NOT specific. Whom do you mean by “they”? What stores? (You might describe them using adjectives…) What is your attitude toward the new stores? How does having these new businesses affect the people living in the community? Does is provide them with closer services/dining? Jobs? What? Why does it matter? What has it changed for the people living there?

Revising Illustration Essays Make your tone or attitude toward the change clear. Your attitude can be complex (perhaps finding a balance between missing the past while at the same time admitting the necessity of change…) but it definitely needs to be present. What broader, society-wide change is the “smaller” change you talk about a part of? Can you include some discussion of that “big change” in your essay?

Introductions We will be looking at different suggestions for writing an introduction on p. 484 (p st ed). For essay #2, your introduction might include some general background information about the place you are making a claim about and what your connection to that place is. You might even start with a vivid, interesting example in order to immediately draw your reader in.

Conclusions We will be looking at conclusion types on p. 485 (p st ed). Conclusions are not simple restatements of what has been said before. Say something in your conclusion that you could not have said at the beginning because your reader did not have the information to understand it yet. A conclusion is the last thing your reader will see from you – leave him or her with some food for thought.

Titles Your title should be original and specific. You might… – Ask a question in your title. – Imagine you are titling your essay for a newspaper or magazine. (Use simple, descriptive words.) – Use alliteration (words that start with the same sound) or humor to create a memorable title. Your title should be centered, and the first letter of all important words should be capitalized.

Open Format Example Every essay should have a descriptive title. “Essay 2” or “A Change” is not appropriate. Your title should be specific to your essay. If it could work as a title for any essay in the whole class, then you need to make it more specific. Always capitalize the important words in the title. Margins should be one inch on all sides. Go to “Layout”, then click “Margins” and make sure that all sides say “1”. If you have an older version of Word, go to “File” and then “Page Setup”. Your whole paper should be double-spaced. Use the double-space button to double-space, do not just hit “enter.” Your next paragraph will also be indented. You will continue to write each of your paragraphs this way.

Review Revising Paragraphs in Textbook Fill out the Revision Self-Check Handout. Then, turn to pages on Revising Paragraphs Read carefully, then choose to do the Revision Map or the Revision Checklist. Revision Map: pg (answer the 4 questions and create your revision map) Revision Checklist: pg 326 or 327 (choose one or do both!)

Pass out the Revising Self-Check Also pass back my comments