Academic Language Required: Active, Passive, Voice, To-be Verbs, Subject, Action

Transcription

1 Active vs. Passive Voice Pre AP English 11 Rhetorical Situation: Students are reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and writing discussion and essay answers for preparation for AP English writing requirements. Teacher Preparation Learning Objective/Purpose: Students will understand the difference between active and passive voice and will incorporate more active voice in their writing. Academic Language Required: Active, Passive, Voice, To-be Verbs, Subject, Action Common Core ELA Standard-Language Grade 11-12: L Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. Resources and Materials: The Crucible, pens/pencils, paper, Student s Computer, Doc camera, white board Accommodations for special learners: Check on ADHD students to make sure they are staying on task and focused during the lesson and have them sit in the front. Visually impaired students will have the lesson in front of them for them to read. ELL students will have the lesson read to them by the aid and have the opportunity to work with them during their writing task. Logistics of Lesson Anticipatory Set/Lead/Intro/Attention Getter: Discussion questions are asked by the teacher. Continuing talking about Act I in The Crucible with a class discussion. Students are then asked to write a free write from a writing prompt discussion question on The Crucible. Students will read the teacher s example of writing prompt. It will be in all passive voice. This will introduce our lesson into active vs. passive voice and how the teacher s writing can be improved. Learning Tasks/Instructional Strategies: We will define the words of passive/active voice, and show examples of the two voices. Students will come up to the board and define which sentence is in the passive and which is in the active. We will then play a game where students are divided into two teams where they have to act out an action and their team members must write an active sentence and a passive sentence of the action being performed. Formal/Informal Assessment

2 Teacher observations while students will come up to the board and identify the active vs. passive voice examples. Students will perform a game where they act out an action and their team members will have to write the active and passive voices on the board. Teacher assessment of students while they freewrite about the academic language of passive and active voice. Formal assessment of their writing prompt using active voice instead of passive voice. Explicitly Stated Rule: Active voice is when the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed in the verb. Passive voice is when the subject of the sentence is not performing the action, but is acted upon. In your writing, you should use active voice to show to your audience rather than telling. Practice as a class: (doc) Passive/Active Voice The committee approved the new policy. The new policy was approved by the committee. Miss Shea read the book. The book was read by Miss Shea. Mistakes were made. She made mistakes. -Team Game Divide into 2 Teams One Team member will choose an action from the hat One team member will then write an active voice and passive voice sentence for the action being acted out. Quickwrite to assess use of Academic Language: Students have 3 minutes to quickwrite on a card to this prompt: Discuss the difference between active and passive voice and how active voice benefits your writing. Use the following words: passive voice, active voice, action, subject, and verb. Extension: Students will go back in their free write and correct their mistakes that they made and use active voice in their writing prompt for The Crucible.

3 Discussion (Follow-up lesson) Based on results of previous lesson Based on the quick-write my partner and I had the students do following the formal lesson we taught, I have mixed feelings on whether the students fully understand the active and passive voices. On the one hand, there were many students participating in the activity we did in class, and whose writing was free of errors. They were AP classes, so we had relatively high expectations for them to do well, especially considering our cooperating teacher had recently taught them to be verbs. Unfortunately, among the twenty students we taught the lesson to, there were four students whose writing and performance in the activity proved that they genuinely did not understand the difference between the active and passive voices. Below is a chart breaking down the quantitative student understanding. ( Quantitative referring to the number of mistakes in academic language usage in the quick-write and lesson extension.) Clearly, a majority of students had at least an adequate understanding of the material errors at most 2-4 errors at most 5 or more errors However, certain students were still confused. The main hangup I noticed was that students were confusing passive voice with past tense. I first noticed this when we had the students participate in an activity, which involved one student acting out a situation, while that student s partner would write the action in the passive and active voice. One student s action was eating a sandwich. Her partner s answer was, for the active: Della* is eating ; and for the passive: Della was eating. Her teammates helped her arrive at the correct answer, but I wasn t sure Della fully understood what was going on. My next clue that students were confusing the similar terms passive and past tense was during the lesson extension, when students returned to their original writing prompt and reworded any sentence constructions in the passive to the active. One student raised her hand to

4 ask, So, if I m discussing the trial but referring to when Abigail and Proctor had an affair, do I still want to get it out of the past tense? Confused, I sat down with her individually and realized that she, too, had misunderstood the difference between passive voice and past tense. The final clue I ve been given that proves to me that some students are confused and that provides me with an idea of what to do an extension lesson on is reading the quick-writes. While the measurement of student understanding in the aforementioned graph provides a quantitative assessment of how many students learned and to what extent they learned, a better depiction is provided by actual comments made in the students quick-writes. Some notable excerpts include:...active is present and passive is past tense. Active is present...you don t use to be verbs. The subject is at the beginning and the verb is at the end. Passive is in the past, so you don t use to be verbs...active makes your writing stronger and present. It uses present action. The difference between active voice and passive voice is what context in time in which you are speaking, whether it be past or present...whichever tense the verb is in, is what voice is being used. (I also enjoyed the student who wrote: Active voice is stronger and more to the point, and English teachers like it a lot. ) To me, these clues demonstrated a need to extend the lesson by distinguishing between tense and voice, thus leading to the following lesson plan about transitive verbs (which incorporate both voice and tense).

5 Verb tense!!! Transitive verbs!! Voice Two types in English! Past! Present Require an object to function Two types in English! Active! Passive Expresses timeframe in which action occurred Can be in any voice/tense Expresses interaction between subject, verb, and object Transitive verbs by Emily Thieman EDT 427A B 30 Sept 2013 Rhetorical situation: Students are reading Arthur Miller s The Crucible to prepare for the AP exam and have learned the difference between passive and active voices, but appear to have difficulties distinguishing between verb voice and tense. They will continue to prepare for the exam using AP-style study guides and practice questions. Learning objective: Students will learn the difference between tense and voice in the English language, specifically how tense and voice are related to and interact with each other in transitive verbs. Related Common Core Standard:

6 L Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. Academic language/vocabulary: Transitive verb, subject, object, voice, tense Resources and materials: Whiteboard or projector of some sort, prepared Venn diagram, pens and pencils, blank paper, prepared bowls of notecards Accommodations: Provide comparison of this rule to the conventions of other languages for English Language Learners (potentially print off a copy of the explicitly stated rule translated into the native language, depending on the level of student s English proficiency). Read materials aloud to the visually impaired (explicitly stated rule and notecard selections). When pairing the hearing impaired for small group discussions in the notecard activity, be certain his/her partner(s) writes out explanations for his/her reasoning. Anticipatory set: Introduce two sentences on the board: He smoked; and He smoked his ribs for seven hours. What different actions do the verbs refer to? Ask the students how the sentences are different. Explicitly stated rule: Transitive verbs are verbs which require a direct object to function properly syntactically. These verbs can be incorporated into sentences of any voice or tense. Verb tense refers to the expression of the timeframe in which an action occurred. On the other hand, voice refers to the expression of the interaction of the subject and object in a sentence. The English language has only two voices (active and passive), and two tenses (past and present, although future can be conveyed through helping verbs). Instructional strategies/learning tasks: After discussing the differences, students will watch the teacher s demonstration of the explicitly stated rule (this will include the Venn diagram attached to the lesson). Students will then examine their previous writing prompts and highlight sentences that use transitive verbs. Have each student write down one highlighted sentence on a small slip of paper, and pass it to the student to their left. This student will then identify the subject, the verb (s), and the object. Students will then pass the sentence two people to the right. This student will now examine this sentence and identify in what tense and in what voice the sentence is constructed. Students will pass the sentence to its original author. He or she will change any passive sentence constructions to the active voice.

7 Take turns bringing several sentences to the doc cam and examining the process as a class (identifying subject/verb/object; identifying verb tense and voice; and changing passive sentences to active). Finally, have students complete a quick-write. Informal/formal assessment: Informal assessment would include the teacher s gauge of the students response to the initially introduced sentences. It would also include the teacher s observation of the students marking of sentences during the sentence activity. Formal assessment would include the teacher s assessment of the quick-write the students do, as well as the assessment of the extension worksheet. Quick-write: For five minutes, have students quick-write on the following prompt: Explain the difference between verb tense and voice. Discuss how the two terms are related to transitive verbs. Include subject, object, voice, time, and verb tense when writing. Extension: Have four bowls of notecards. One bowl will have notecards with objects; another will have verbs; another will have active or passive; a final will have past, present, or future. Have students each choose a notecard from each bowl and, for homework, construct the corresponding sentence. Students will also identify the correct answers in the extension worksheet.

8 Name For each of the following sentences, determine the transitive verb, the verb tense, and the voice. 1. The shutdown is approved by the Congress today. Transitive verb (phrase): Verb tense: Voice: 2. I loved cheese on my sandwiches. Transitive verb: Verb tense: Voice: 3. The project was completed yesterday. Transitive verb (phrase): Verb tense: Voice:

9 Discussion (Conventions lesson) While searching the students quickwrites for convention errors, it was initially difficult to decide on which convention to focus on. It seemed that most students (pre-ap juniors) had at the very least a decent grasp of Standard English; however, different students did indeed have problems with certain things. For example, a few students seemed to lack knowledge of crafting parallel structures in lists. Below is a breakdown of the conventions I considered focusing on for a follow-up lesson Parallelism itʼs/its is when run-ons 2nd person Clearly, there were a number of lessons I could have chosen to focus on, but in the end, a lesson on run-on sentences would seem to me to be the most beneficial to the students. Both parallelism in a series and differences between it s and its are important skills to learn, but neither issue was rampant enough to warrant a lesson for the students who did have a grasp of those concepts. Moreover, especially with it s/its, it is quite possible students simply made a mistake in the heat of writing and missed such a small detail when correcting. The next writing issue I considered teaching a follow-up lesson on is using is when to describe a noun. When I was in high school, I was once taught that writing a sentence along the lines of, active voice is when the subject is doing the action of the sentence, is incorrect because when refers to a point in time, not a voice used in writing. However, upon researching this alleged grammatical offense, I found that, to most writers, it was not so serious a crime as I had been taught it was. In fact, there were many websites claiming the structure was acceptable to use. The most detailed explanation on the subject that I found simply stated that using is when to describe a noun is a stylistic, more than grammatical, error. Therefore, focusing an entire lesson on this seemed unnecessary.

10 The final two contenders for teaching a lesson were run-on sentences and incorporating the second person. I decided on run-on sentences because they are a serious offense committed by enough students in their quick-write. Using the second person is equally unacceptable, and was used by a greater number of students; however, we stressed in the directions that the quickwrite was to be the first thoughts that came to a student s mind when writing. This on-the-fly writing style would warrant less formal writing. If the problem were to continue in formal essays, though, I as a teacher would take the time to teach that lesson. With run-on and unnecessarily lengthy sentences as my follow-up lesson topic-of-choice, I needed to consider how exactly how the students were abusing this structure in their writing. A few of the most notable quotations from students quick-writes include (issues in actual content not considered): Passive voice isn t as strong as the active voice because the subject in the sentence isn t the one doing the action where in the active voice action verbs are used to describe what the subject is doing to the object, not what is being done to the object by the subject. Active voice is when the subject is doing something passive voice is when what is being done on the verb switches with the subject and becomes the subject. The difference between active voice and passive voice is what context in time in which you are speaking whether it be past or present. Active voice is showing the reader the action in a more clear form it helps the reader understand the sentence and in general, it sounds better. With these in mind, I crafted a follow-up lesson on different types of sentences, and how to connect different clauses.

11 Introduction to Types of Sentences by Emily Thieman EDT Oct 2013 Rhetorical Situation: Students are preparing for the AP test they will be taking next year by focusing in-depth on important pieces of literature and formal essay writing. Learning Objective: Students will learn to craft concise sentences; specifically, they will learn what constitutes a sentence and how to connect two clauses to each other through the use of commas and conjunctions. Related Common Core Standard: L b Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. Use various types of phrases...and clauses...to convey specific meanings and add variety and interest to writing or presentations. Academic language/vocabulary: Compound sentences, complex sentences, independent clauses, dependent clauses Resources and materials: White board/markers, paper and pencils, bowls, labeled slips of paper Accommodations: Provide comparison of this rule to the conventions of other languages for English Language Learners (potentially print off a copy of the explicitly stated rule translated into the native language, depending on the level of student s English proficiency). Read materials aloud to the visually impaired (explicitly stated rule and notecard selections). When pairing the hearing impaired for small group discussions in the notecard activity, be certain his/her partner(s) writes out explanations for his/her reasoning. Anticipatory set: The teacher will ask the students What makes a sentence a sentence? and write possible answers on the white board. Then, present the students with the following examples on the white board, discussing how each may or may not be a sentence: I eat cheese daily. Clean your room. Because he ran down the street. My life is a comedy and your life is a tragedy. Explicitly stated rule:

12 An independent clause consists of a subject and verb. A dependent clause can contain a subject and verb, but cannot stand alone as a sentence because it begins with a subordinating conjunction. A sentence must contain at least one independent clause, and, depending on whether there are other clauses to enhance it, the sentence can be simple, compound, or complex. To connect two independent clauses, use a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so); to connect an independent clause, use a subordinating conjunction (because, since, after, although, or when or a relative pronoun such as that, who, or which). Instructional strategies/learning tasks: Following the anticipatory set discussion, the teacher will directly instruct the students on the explicitly stated rule. Students will then look at a list of sentences (attached at the end) and determine whether it is a sentence, and, if so, what kind of sentence it is. Students will then work with a partner to discuss what they did correctly and incorrectly. The class will then come together to discuss the answers. Next, the students will play a game. Two students at a time will pull slips of paper from two different bowls: one or two from a bowl labeled clause, and one from a bowl labeled type. Based on the sentence type the student pulls from the type bowl, the student will choose one or two clauses to be connected in the way determined by the type of sentence. Whichever student finishes first wins that round. Finally, students will complete the quick-write, followed by the extension activity. Informal/formal assessment: The teacher will be able to formally assess the students based on their performance on the list of sentences activity and based on their answers to the quick-write and lesson extension. The teacher will be able to informally assess the students based on the initial class discussion of what a sentence is, and based on their performance in the game at the end. Quick-write: Student will quick-write for five minutes on the following prompt: What makes a sentence a sentence? Discuss the differences between the three different types of sentences, using the terms independent clause, dependent clause, simple, compound, and complex. Extension: Students will have their original quick-writes returned to them, and will be asked to identify what type of sentences they wrote. If they find their sentences were not sentences, they will be corrected.

13 Sentence? (Y/N) I like to run, but I don t like to sweat. Type of sentence (S, Cd, Cx) If you weren t so clumsy, you could avoid falling up the stairs. This football jersey is pretty cheesy. I like winter when it isn t snowing. I made friends with the woman who wore the coat.