To Be or Not to Be:

1. Watch the video and learn about active vs passive voice with zombies! http://www.schooltube.com/video/72e3fcd9a53f48018549/Zombie%20English To Be or Not to Be: Teaching Verb choice

2. Invitation to Notice • Copy the following verse in your LA composition book: • “It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I stood in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff rose behind us. A volcano smoked ahead of us.” (Jon Scieszka, Your Mother was a Neanderthal, 1993) What do you notice?

3. Invitation to Notice • Copy the following verse in your LA composition book: • “It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I were standing in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff was rising behind us. A volcano was smoking ahead of us.” (Jeff Anderson, Everyday Editing, 2007) Now what do you notice?

4. Which version has main verbs? • “It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I stood in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff rose behind us. A volcano smoked ahead of us.” • It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I were standing in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff was rising behind us. A volcano was smoking ahead of us.

5. Which version has helping verbs? • “It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I stood in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff rose behind us. A volcano smoked ahead of us.” • It was like nothing on earth we had ever seen before. Fred, Sam, and I were standing in front of strange trees and giant ferns. A rocky cliff was rising behind us. A volcano was smoking ahead of us.

6. Which one do you think is better? • Verbs of being: is, are, was, were, be, been , am • Add the verbs of being to the main verb + -ing and it shows ongoing action making it passive tense • Dropping the being verb and the –ing ending can add “a little snap to their prose” (Anderson, p. 97)

7. Add verbs of being +ing to the main verbs…How does this change it? “He dashed to the house while the smell of hose water and burning plaster drifted up over the patio.” (Tony Abbott, Firegirl, 2007) More Mentors…

8. “Stepping out of the overheated car, Hector found himself shivering. He zipped up his flimsy nylon windbreaker and pulled the drawstring of the small hood snugly around his face, although he knew this made him look like a turtle without a shell.” (Lynn Rae Perkins, Criss Cross, 2005) More Mentors…

9. Notice what Perkins showed us in her writing: • “Stepping out of the overheated car, Hector found himself shivering. He zipped up his flimsy nylon windbreaker and pulled the drawstring of the small hood snugly around his face, although he knew this made him look like a turtle without a shell.” • Instead of writing “It was cold, a great writer can change a sentence completely by showing rather than telling. Perkins tells us it is cold without ever using the word. Note the verbs: • Even in the –ing form…they are not paired with verbs of being • Yet, they still make us shiver!

10. Having the subject receive the action rather than having the subject act is another way to mess up the writing! Make the subject do the work to write in active voice! A Key thought:

11. Idioms “Crud, my foots gone to sleep!”

12. What is an idiom? • refers to a phrase or expression that cannot be understood by knowing what the individual words in the phrase mean.

13. What does that mean? • words are put together to make a clever phrase that means something other than what the individual words mean

14. Huh? For example: Barking up the wrong tree To misunderstand a situation and complain to a wrong person or blame a wrong thing

15. Can I see another example? Being Cool as a Cucumber means being very calm and relaxed even in a difficult situation Free powerpoint template: www.brainybetty.com

16. Oh, I get it… • This is a humorous expression that is used when you found out someone else was thinking about the same thing as you were. Free powerpoint template: www.brainybetty.com

17. Time for whiteboards! Can you figure out the idiomatic phrase?

18. Try these on your own… You got it…a couch potato. It’s usually someone laying around a lot!!! Now try this one….

19. Can you guess this one? • Very good, it’s… • putting your foot in your mouth. • It means that you said something you shouldn’t have.

20. Zip your lip!

21. Cut the mustard

22. Read my lips!

23. Walking on egg shells.

24. Pumping Iron!

25. Hit the lights!

26. Cat got your tongue?

27. Easy as pie

28. Catch a cold See eye to eye Stuffed to the gills On pins and needles Head in the sand Feel like a million Going bananas Hold your horses You try it! Pick one to illustrate.

29. Idiom Matching Game • Follow the directions! • Play with your table group.

30. Excerpt from Oliver Twist… Read the excerpt and draw an illustration of what you visualize after your read on your white boards.

31. Excerpt from Oliver Twist… Show your illustration to your group. Answer the questions in the margin of the paper.

32. Can you find the meaning behind idioms? Use your ipads to discover meanings behind idioms by going to the following website: http://www.idiomsite.com/