Was Hit Our by Beam
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LoopS ship was hit our by beam a weaker 1 Introduction to the Loops In the pages that follow, you will find two sets of five loops each. They are called loops, not chapters, because chapters tend to move forward in a linear way, introducing new material along the path, whereas these loops do not really introduce new ideas; rather, they let us explore new expressions of things we have begun to know, increasing our comprehension rather than our content. After each group of five loops, there are major tests available. One is a four-level grammar test, which contains one hundred questions and is largely based on the four-level analysis sentences that come at the beginning of each loop. The second is a P as ƒ of G punctuation test, a very difficult punctuation test that can only be done if you really know what you are doing with punctuation, which means that you have to know your grammar. Within the loops there are lots of options for individual or group assignments. These options will introduce you to some famous grammar and to the styles of writers, and will give you a chance to have some fun applying the grammar you are learning. 2 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Four-Level Analysis _____________________________________________________________________________ The Martian visitors will have landed by Thursday. Parts of speech: The is an adjective (definite article) modifying the plural common noun visitors; Martian is a proper adjective that also modifies visitors; will and have are helping verbs that help the main verb landed form the future perfect tense; by is a preposition; and Thursday is a proper noun that is also the object of the preposition by. Parts of sentence: The subject is visitors, and will have landed is the verb/simple predicate. Phrases: The sentence contains two phrases. The first is a verb phrase, will have landed, that consists of a main verb and two helping verbs. We often show the tense of a verb by creating a phrase: will fly, has flown, will have flown, etc. The second phrase in this sentence is a prepositional phrase, by Thursday. This phrase modifies the verb. Remember that prepositional phrases are always modifiers. We will not mark verb phrases is our level-three analysis. Clauses: This is a simple declarative sentence based on a single subject and predicate. It is simple because it contains one clause, and it is declarative because it makes a statement. • • • Perfect tense: Remember that the perfect tenses are called perfect after the Latin verb perficere, to finish. If I will have landed by Thursday, I will have finished by then. Proper adjective: Martian is a proper adjective, capitalized because it derives from the proper noun Mars. Remember: There is a four-level analysis sentence at the beginning of each loop, and it is these very sentences that are used in the Grammar Review Test. Be sure to study these sentences carefully. 3 FOUR-LEVEL ANALYSIS The Martian visitors will have landed by Thursday. Parts of Speech: adj. adj. n. v. v. v. prep. n. _________________________________________________________________ Parts of Sentence: subject --------AVP------- _________________________________________________________________ Phrases: --prep. phrase-- _________________________________________________________________ Clauses: one independent clause; simple declarative sentence _________________________________________________________________ This sentence illustrates the logic of prepositional phrase modification. We know that prepositional phrases are modifiers, so every prepositional phrase is either an adjective or an adverb. Which one is this? One way to tell is to remember the preposition placement rule: any prepositional phrase that modifies a noun must be placed immediately after it. So by Thursday can not modify visitors; it can only modify the verb. By this same rule the phrase would modify the verb if the phrase came at the beginning of the sentence. BINARY DIAGRAM visitors will have landed the Martian by Thursday 4 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Grammar Ideas _____________________________________________________________________________ Questions for individual thought or small group discussion: synthesis: making connections You look up a verb in the dictionary and find that, in addition to a definition, the dictionary entry contains the letters v.t. in italics. What does that tell you about how that verb is to be used? How many forms of knowledge have to come together in your brain to enable you to look up and comprehend the abbreviation v.t.? divergence: thinking of alternatives Grammar is a way of thinking about language, but another way of saying this is that grammar helps you to organize ideas. Think of as many ways as you can in which grammar helps you to organize ideas, and consider this question one level at a time, beginning with parts of speech, then parts of sentence, then phrases, and then clauses. analysis: breaking down into components Why are the parts of speech called the parts of speech? aesthetics: artistic qualities Which sentence do you think is more beautiful: “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Why? 5 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Mystery Sentence _____________________________________________________________________________ Use the grammar clues to solve this Mystery Sentence: A children’s story contains a compound declarative sentence distinguished by three independent clauses. A coordinating conjunction is used twice to join the three clauses together. Each clause contains a contraction of the first person singular subject pronoun and the helping verb will. The third clause contains a second person singular possessive adjective, a direct object, and an adverb. The first two clauses contain only subjects and verbs. What is the sentence? ________________________________________ 1. I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down. 6 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Literary Grammar _____________________________________________________________________________ From Nathaniel Hawthorne!s The Scarlet Letter A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes. What is the style of this first paragraph from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic? How many sentences are in the paragraph? How many words are in the sentence? Is there a direct object? What is the subject/predicate set? How many adjectives are in the paragraph? What generalizations could you make about the style of the paragraph? What do you notice about, and how can you explain, the following consonants: A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes. 7 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Grammar Recipes _____________________________________________________________________________ 1. Write a simple declarative sentence that has a compound subject consisting of one common noun and one proper noun, that has a verb consisting of a main verb and a helping verb, that contains a direct object, and that contains an indefinite article. 2. Write a complex declarative sentence that contains a dependent clause beginning with a subordinating conjunction followed by an independent clause that includes a subject complement. ___________________________ 1. Ahab and the mariners have hunted a beautiful creature. 2. If you didn’t climb the mast, Starbuck is a liar. 8 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Writing Lab _____________________________________________________________________________ Prepositional Phrases 1. Describe a peaceful woodland scene with an animal moving through or across it. You can choose any animal you like. The description should be between fifty and one hundred words long. 2. After you finish, read your paragraph; then go back and strike through the prepositional phrases. 3. See if you can think of a different way to include the information that used to be in the prepositional phrases. 4. Write your own definitions of preposition and prepositional phrase. 9 _____________________________________________________________________________ The Magic Lens • Loop One • Quotation Analysis _____________________________________________________________________________ “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.” -William Shakespeare Perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest play, Hamlet contains this classic line of self-doubt, when Hamlet cries in soliloquy: “Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” Analyze the four levels of grammar in Hamlet’s sentence. _________________________________________________________ Parts of speech: Oh is an interjection; what is an adjective modifying the noun rogue; the indefinite article a is also an adjective modifying rogue; and is a coordinating conjunction joining