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Title - Writing and Grammar Unit - Lesson 4
By - John Foley
Primary Subject - Language Arts
Grade Level - 9-12
Unit Contents:
Lesson 4: Modify in Moderation
The respected author of On Writing Well urges writers to be "intensely selective" with adjectives and adverbs. "If you a describing a beach," says William Zinsser, "don’t write that the shore was scattered with rocks or that occasionally a seagull flew over. Shores have a tendency to be scattered with rocks and to be flown over by seagulls."
Read the following insightful passage, which is from an autobiographical novel by a popular American writer.
I began my paper, but began it badly. I never began things well. The first sentence had too many adjectives. So did the second. Remembering that my professor in the modern novel, Colonel Masters, a shy and excellent teacher, had chided me gently about my irrepressible love of adjectives, I started again with clear simple sentences. Nouns and verbs, nouns and verbs, and occasionally, to satisfy my own simple lust, I would throw in a delicious, overwrought adjective or two.--Pat Conroy
Many young writers develop a hard-to-kick adjective habit, particularly after realizing they have some descriptive talent. Adjectives, however, are more powerful when used sparingly. Cross out the modifiers in the following sentences and note how the flow improves.
It was very clearly apparent that the troublesome students would not stay serenely in the boring class.
I was on slippery ice and slowly and dangerously drifting toward a big truck at the busy and cluttered intersection.
A rampaging grizzly could use the hiker’s huge walking stick as a handy toothpick after he’d quickly dispatched with his meager and frightened human meal.
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