Lesson Title: Active and Passive Voice, Part 2

Lesson Goal(s): To teach students how active and passive voice work in Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Coming into Language”

Instructional Objectives: After completion of this lesson, the student will change Baca’s sentences, be able to explain why they made the changes they made, and examine how the sentences changed as a result.

Prior Skills/Knowledge: Active and Passive Voice, Part 1

Instructional Procedure(s):

Time: 50 min.

1. As a class, go over homework answers one at a time. Allow students to volunteer or call on them. (10 min.)

2. Ask students to get into groups or pairs. On a separate sheet of paper or in their journals, have students use the chart they completed for homework to 1) explain why they think Baca used either active or passive constructions and 2) explain how their change affected the sentence. Students should consider whether the new sentence is more effective or not and why. (20 min.) [Instructors: you may assign all ten or choose a few, according to how much time you would like to spend on this part of the lesson.]

3. Ask students to take out their essays and exchange them with a peer. Each student should look at the essay they have been given and circle examples of passive voice that would benefit from being changed to active. Then, they will find examples of sentences that could be changed to passive. (10 min.)

4. Students will pass essays back to authors, who will use the remaining class time (and all the handouts they have been given) to make changes. (10 min.)

5. Homework: Students will type a page with original sentences from their essay and the new sentences they wrote. These will be turned in the following class period. Instructors can take these up and give credit for them or use them as a “bank” of examples for later in the semester.