Agenda
1) Warmup
When is it good to be active?
When is it bad to be active?
When is it good to be passive?
When is it bad to be passive?
2) Active vs. Passive Voice
3) Pronoun Chart
Homework
None
This week we will be taking the district tests on Wednesday and Thursday. This is NOT the state tests we take in the spring. It's something the district uses to monitor progress and the effectiveness of the district-provided lessons and training. We use it to guide instruction, particularly with regard to what we need to reteach.
Today we went over active voice vs. passive voice. Here's the definition and a few examples.
Active Voice: The subject of the sentence is doing the verb.
Passive Voice: The subject is having the verb done to it.
Active: I drove the car.
Passive: The car was driven by me.
Active: He threw the ball gracefully.
Passive: The ball was thrown gracefully.
Passive: The man was shot by the soldier.
Active: The soldier shot the man.
Note that this last pair has the passive voice first and active voice last. Newspapers and politicians frequently use passive voice when describing something unpleasant to make it seem not so bad.
We also went over the basics of pronouns and pronoun agreement. Tomorrow we'll take a look at writing in 1st person vs 3rd person.
