Grammar Exercises

Go to the following website and answer fifty total questions:

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/alle_grammar.htm

You need to write your answers on notebook paper and bring them in tomorrow for credit.

If you want extra credit, you can answer the questions in eight sections of exercises.

Eight Parts of Speech

Before we get to the exercises, I want to say that I had a wonderful day at school today. This is one of the schools that is very wonderfully unusual in that we get to share so many more things that are valuable than mere academics. We take care of the academics and yet so much more also. That being said, for those of you who will still visit the site tonight, I apologize for not getting these things posted sooner. I will work hard to do better in the future. And, so, here we go:

1. What's the difference between common & proper nouns?

2. Make the possessive forms of the following nouns:

a. Jesus
b. Peggy
c. Indians

3. What does a pronoun do?

4. Find the pronouns and their antecedents:

a. Mr. Mulligan planted more soybeans last year. They brought him a good price.

b. The thief erased his fingerprints from the windowsill and the door handle.

5. Choose the correct compound personal pronouns to fill the blank:

We always do the repairs _______________.

6. Tell what demonstrative prounouns do and give three examples.

7. Interrogative prounouns are used to ask questions. Choose the correct form of interrogative prounouns in the sentences below:

a. (Who/Whom/Which) made these delicious tacos?

b. Of the two sweaters (Who/Whom/Which) do you prefer?

c. (Which/What) caused the explosion?

8. What are proper adjectives? Give two examples.

9. Find the demonstative adjectives in the sentences below (remember, though: when used alone, these demonstrative adjectives are called demonstrative pronouns):

a. I like this book.

b. Can you knock over those bowling pins all at once?

10. Find the adjectives in the sentences below and tell what nouns they modify:

a. The fence had sharp spikes on top.

b. The two hikers dropped the heavy backpacks.

c. The moon made a narrow gold path on the water.

d. I bought Swiss cheese and one loaf of French bread.

Rhyming & Scanning

I want you to take the following poem by Donald Hall and tell me how to scan it and find its rhyme scheme. (I have provided very detailed explanations of scansion and rhyme scheme after the poem.)

Donald Hall

"Advent"

When I see the cradle rocking
What is it that I see?
I see a rood on the hilltop
Of Calvary.


When I hear the cattle lowing
What is it that they say?
They say that shadows feasted
At Tenebrae.


When I know that the grave is empty,
Absence eviscerates me,
And I dwell in a cavernous, constant
Horror vacui.

SCANSION:

Scansion is the dividing of verse (lines of poetry) into feet by indicating accents and counting syllables to determine the meter of a poem. It is a means of studying the mechanical elements by which the poet has established his rhythmical effects. The meter, once the scanning has been performed, is named according to the type and number of feet employed in a verse.

Following are the major types of meter (the adjective form is in parenthesis). The indicates an unstressed syllable; the indicates a stressed one.

Iambus (iambic)

Trochee (trochaic)

Anapest (anapestic)

Dactyl (dactylic)

Spondee (spondaic)

Pyrrhus (pyrrhic)


A verse of one foot (of any type) is called monometer; of two feet, dimeter; of three feet, trimeter; of four feet, tetrameter; of five feet, pentameter; of six feet, hexameter; of seven feet, heptameter; of eight feet, octameter. Thus a verse consisting of two trochaic feet is called trochaic dimeter; of five iambic feet, iambic pentameter, and so on.

Let's take a look at the opening line of Shakespeare's sonnet 147 to see how scansion works:



The line follows a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed. That makes it iambic. If we break the line into iambic feet (the number of iambs), we see that there are five. Thus, following the naming convention mentioned above, it is iambic pentameter.

Scanning a line in this way helps to understand its structure; however, even the best of verse sometimes only approximates the pattern.

Scansion is often considered to include rhyme scheme as well as verse analysis. To determine the rhyme scheme, assign a letter to the last word of each line. For example, consider the first quatrain of Shakespeare's sonnet 147:

My love is as a fever, longing still a
For that which longer nurseth the disease, b
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, a
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please. b

The first line ends with "still," so we assign the value a to it. Because the second line does not rhyme with the first one, we assign it a value of b. Line three rhymes with line one, so it has the same value of a. The fourth line rhymes with the second, so it gets a b.

Adapted from C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 3rd ed. (Indianapolis: Odyssey press, 1972).

RHYME SCHEME:

he most common characteristic of formal verse is rhyme. While characteristics like meter, syllable counting, and regular structure are also used in formal verse, rhyme is by far the most pervasive, appearing in nearly every major variety of formal verse.

A rhyme scheme is a regular pattern of rhyme, one that is consistent throughout the extent of the poem. Poems that rhyme without any regular pattern can be called rhyming poems, but only those poems with an unvarying pattern to their rhymes can be said to have a rhyme scheme.

Rhyme schemes are labeled according to their rhyme sounds. Every rhyme sound is given its own letter of the alphabet to distinguish it from the other rhyme sounds that may appear in the poem. For example, the first rhyme sound of a poem is designated as a. Every time that rhyme sound appears in the poem, no matter where it is found, it is called a. The second rhyme sound to appear in the poem is designated b. Every other time that rhyme sound appears in the poem, no matter where it is found, it is called b. The third rhyme sound to appear would be c, the fourth d, and so on, for as many rhyme sounds as appear in the poem.

The following short poem illustrates the labeling of a rhyme scheme.

There once was a big brown cat a
That liked to eat a lot of mice. b
He got all round and fat a
Because they tasted so nice. b

This bit of elegant verse shows a very simple rhyme scheme. The first rhyme sound we encounter, at the end of the first line, is cat. Because it is the first rhyme sound, it is labeled as a. Every time that rhyme sound is repeated, any time something rhymes with cat, it is also called a. Line three ends with fat, which rhymes with cat, so it is also an a.
The second rhyme sound comes at the end of the second line, mice. As the second rhyme sound it is called b, and so are any other following lines that rhyme with it, such as nice in line four.

The following three poems are excellent examples of poems with rhyme schemes. Note that the third selection, "The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe, features internal rhyme in some of its lines, and standard end-word rhyme in the other lines. In effect, it actually has two rhyme schemes operating simultaneously.

* * * * *

Alone
Edgar Allen Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been a
As others were; I have not seen a
As others saw; I could not bring b
My passions from a common spring. b
From the same source I have not taken c
My sorrow; I could not awaken c
My heart to joy at the same tone; d
And all I loved, I loved alone. d
Then—in my childhood, in the dawn e
Of a most stormy life—was drawn e
From every depth of good and ill f
The mystery which binds me still: f
From the torrent, or the fountain, g
From the red cliff of the mountain, g
From the sun that round me rolled h
In its autumn tint of gold, h
From the lightning in the sky i
As it passed me flying by, i
From the thunder and the storm, j
And the cloud that took the form j
(When the rest of Heaven was blue) k
Of a demon in my view. k

* * * * *


Dulce Et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, a
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, b
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs a
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. b
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots c
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; d
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots c
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. d

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling, e
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; f
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling e
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime... f
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, g
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. h

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, g
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. h

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace i
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, j
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, i
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; j
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood k
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, l
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud k
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues--- l
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest m
To children ardent for some desperate glory, n
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est m
Pro patria mori.* n


*Translation: It is sweet and honorable to die for your country.

Hayden Carruth: A Major American Poet

Read this poem by Carruth and post comments regarding what you think Carruth is saying about poetry (because he really is talking about poetry):

Endnote
by Hayden Carruth


The great poems of
our elders in many
tongues we struggled

to comprehend who
are now content with
mystery simple

and profound you
in the night your
breath your body

orbit of time and
the moment you
Phosphorus and

Hesper a dark circle
of fertility so
bloodthirsty for us

you in the world
the night breathing
asleep and alive.

Then follow this link to read about Hayden Carruth and be ready for a quiz on this remarkable poet (you will have to copy/paste the link into your browser's address bar):

http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/232



P. S. Three followers! Yeah! That may be more than I've ever had . . .

TGI A Snow Day: Our Snow Day Class

See, I knew we’d be out because of snow today!

For those of you who are visiting the blog today, thank you for being dedicated and trading some of your free time to participate in class.

To get started, here are some terms I want you to learn:

Allusion - Unacknowledged quotations or citations from our cultural heritage such as religious texts, history, literature from America, Britain, and/or the rest of the world.. Authors assume that readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context.

Atmosphere or Mood - the emotional aura invoked by a work.

Tone - the author’s attitude toward his subject (what he’s writing about) or her reader.

Here’s a great site for literary terms:

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_a.htm

Here’s our text: Eavan Boland’s poem, “Atlantis - A Lost Sonnet”

How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder
that a whole city—arches, pillars, colonnades,
not to mention vehicles and animals—had all
one fine day gone under?

I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then.
Surely a great city must have been missed?
I miss our old city —

white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting
under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe
what really happened is

this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word
to convey that what is gone is gone forever and
never found it. And so, in the best traditions of

where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name
and drowned it.
　
For today, to get things started on this site, here are some basic questions:

1.) How is it possible that the disappearance of Atlantis can be similar to the life of the person telling this poem, even though this person is living in contemporary, current day society?

2.) What is the author’s tone toward Atlantis?

3.) What is the author’s tone toward his or her so-called past life?

4.) Do you think the author appreciates a person who likes to read this kind of poem? In other words, is the author making fun of someone who would like this? What kind of reader is the author imagining as her reader?

5.) What emotions do you think the author is trying to raise?
　

Creating an Account & Rules

Our class blog can be found at the following address:

http://fishingforintelligence.blogspot.com/
My email account for the class blog is as follows:
mrmckennartf@gmail.com

CREATING YOUR ACCOUNT

When you create you account, bear in mind that the account you are using for this class has the specific purpose of being used simply as an extension of our class at RTF. (You can create as many Google accounts as email names you can think of. So, I’m not taking anything from you by asking you to create specific accounts.) All the rules that we have at R. T. apply on the blog, so, for example, be respectful of everyone, keep in mind that you should reflect the maturity of your level in our program as you interact with others on the blog (so a Level 4 student will have higher expectations than a Level One, even though we have high expectations for all students), etc.

That being said, I want everyone’s privacy kept private. So, when you create this account, I want you to create a fictitious name that others will not recognize. So, everyone will choose a color as their name with “rtf” at the end of it. Colors will be a first come/first serve basis. REMEMBER: I want “rtf” to be the last letters of your displayed name. So, for instance, if you decide to call yourself “Blue” as a user name (also called the display name), then your full name would be:

Bluertf@gmail.com with your user/display name being "Bluertf."

Here is a list of a few colors to choose from :

Blue / Green / Red / Orange / Teal / Brown / Fuschia / White / Violet / Yellow / Purple / Pink

Here are 50 more:

http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/americas_favorites/index.cfm

I think you all get the idea. If you find all colors seem to be chosen (trust me, they’re not; there are lots and lots of colors), go look through a box of crayons and find one that hasn’t been used yet.
THE FIRST STEP IN CREATING THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT IS, OF COURSE, CREATING AN EMAIL.

HERE IS THE LINK WHERE YOU START:

http://mail.google.com/mail/signup

EMAIL ME AS SOON AS YOU HAVE CREATED YOUR ACCOUNT AND TELL ME WHAT YOUR USER/DISPLAY NAME IS, WHAT YOUR EMAIL IS, ETC.

IF YOU ENCOUNTER ANY PROBLEMS, CONTACT ME.

I hope this will be fun and intellectually stimulating for everyone as we find ways to make the classroom experience collaborative.