Powerpoint - Riverdale High School

Grammar Practice

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Language Standard 3: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening. Objective: 

TSW be able to define and identify pronoun antecedents and ambiguous pronouns.  TSW edit sentences with ambiguous pronouns to be more clear.

Literature

Standard

“The Yellow L3 Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Date Taught

Date Tested EOC: Tuesday May 13th 2014

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A pronoun can replace a noun or another pronoun. A pronoun REPLACES another word.

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First person point of view examples: I, me, we, our, mine Second person point of view examples: you, yours, ya’ll, Third person point of view examples: he, she it, they, them, their, her, him, theirs, its

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A pronoun antecedent is what the pronoun REPLACES.

1. 2.

3.

Somebody has left their bag on the floor. The person who stole the wheels off of my car should have to personally pay for the damage. Tell Samuel I dig his kicks.

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Look at this sentence: The friendship between Robert and Blake dissolved when he moved. ▪ What is the pronoun? ▪ What is the pronoun antecedent?

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am·big·u·ous

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amˈbigyo͞oəs/ Adjective

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1. (of language) open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning. Ex. The question is rather ambiguous. Ex. Her tone of voice was ambiguous; I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or sarcastic.

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Jessica met with Susie after she had lunch.

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You might read this sentence and automatically correct the pronoun ambiguity. For some reason, you might think that Jessica had the lunch. Some of you might think Susie had the lunch. The truth is, there is no way of knowing. The pronoun “she” is ambiguous because it has no clear antecedent: it can refer to either Jessica or Susie.

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How do we fix this problem? Simple. Just replace the ambiguous pronoun with the noun it should refer to. Let’s say the author meant for “she” to refer to Jessica:

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Jessica met with Susie after Jessica had lunch.

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Jessica was running around all day trying to finish her errands. She knew she was supposed to meet Sarah at some point, but Jessica had a million things to do. Finally, a decision was made and she met her after lunch.

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Use context clues and fix the ambiguous pronoun on your own paper.

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Individual Work: Complete the worksheet on your own.

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Group Work: Get with your baseball groups and check your answers.

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Class Check. All together now!

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Standards:  RL 1: Cite evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.  RL 3: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story. Objectives: TSW analyze the use of 1st person pronouns and how they affect the reliability of the narrator.

Literature

Standards

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

RL1 RL3

Date Taught

Date Tested TBA

A story’s narrator-the character or voice that relates the events to the reader- can have a marked effect on how you perceive the events of the story. What is the difference between a reliable narrator and an unreliable narrator?

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Reliable Narrator: The audience can trust that everything the narrator says is true and really happening. Unreliable Narrator: The audience CANNOT trust what the narrator is saying. They have to decipher and infer for themselves what is true.

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Make a chart like the one below. Fill it out as we read. Find at least 5 examples. Reliable or unreliable? Cite evidence from the text.

Explain evidence

1. Unreliable: “I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition” (Gilman 800)

The narrator is admitting that she has some kind of ‘condition’ that makes her insensible. That makes me think that she may be slightly crazy.

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The narrator of this story is unreliable- you can’t always trust that what she says is accurate or complete. How does her highly subjective account contribute to your perception of her character’s internal development? Cite evidence from the story to support your answer. Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. Perception: the way you think about or understand someone or something

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We know this short story is written in the first person point of view because of the use of first person pronouns. (I, me, mine)

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To change the point of view, re-write the following passage in the third person point of view. Make sure to assign our narrator a name and change all of the necessary pronouns. Make sure not to use any ambiguous pronouns.

I think that woman gets out in the daytime! And I’ll tell you why-privately-I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight! I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I don’t blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight! I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once. And John is so queer now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.

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Looking at the record of warnings and citations issued, it is evident that water quality is the reason for the department’s monitoring of the lake, like that of other state agencies. A. Like that of the other state agencies B. Like those of other state agencies C. As it is for the other state agencies

D. As they are for the other state agencies E. Being like that of other state agencies

When I took my dad to the hospital, it was A discovered that he had broken his collarbone, B Which they said would take six weeks to heal. C D No error E

A manatee differs from the dugong in both size A and shape; the most noticeable difference is the B dugong’s tail, which is forked, unlike their C D paddle-shaped tail. No error E