Remember – when you turn in assignments, you need to look at what the assignment is and then determine what UNIT it belongs it. If it is the Beowulf Persuasive Essay, then it goes in the Beowulf folder. You just have to be able to sort.

We started out the day doing brushstrokes with Be Verbs:

Painting with Action Verbs

How important is the use of action verbs?  Jon Franklin, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, says:

“Nothing is as critical as the use of action verbs.  This is absolutely—utterly, completely, with shrieking boldface and CAPITAL LETTERS—CENTRAL to good writing.”

Picture the following image in our mind:

“The road was on the left side of the barn.”

Notice how the image in your mind is a still photograph with no action.  Linking (or being) verbs—am, is, are, was, were, been, being—freeze an image.  Now, watch what happens to the image when the verb is changed to an action verb:

 “The road curled around the left side of the barn.”

           The image literally moves in your mind like a motion picture.  This is the difference between being verbs and action verbs.  Often, this brush stroke is added during the process of revision.  A common problem that many writers have is the overuse of being verbs.  You should be able to eliminate between 50 and 70 percent of these verbs as you write.

Activity 5—Action Verbs

Imagine that you are the author of Treasure Island and below is your rough draft.  As you examine it, you realize that it is loaded with ineffective being verbs (is, was, were, are, and other forms of the verb be) that slow down the pace. Rewrite the draft eliminating as many of the being verbs as you can by replacing them with brush strokes of action verbs. For example, you can combine sentences like, “The dog sat under a tree. He was scratching his neck.” Simply eliminate the being verb and create a participle: “The dog sat under a tree, scratching his neck.”

Treasure Island Rough Draft with Being Verbs Added

I remember him as if it were yesterday. He was a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man.  What was noticeable was his jet black pigtail and his soiled blue coat.  He had a handspike.  His hands were rugged and scarred with black broken nails, and there was a cut across one cheek of a dirty, livid white.

 

Rewrite of the Rough Draft from Treasure Island

This is how we started the day. Then, we highlighted all the BE verbs in our MEMOIR (that’s our MEMORY essay, not the Persuasive Essay).

You can easily do this by going to Word going to FIND.

Make sure you click FIND NEXT. It will highlight in a light blue if you have any instances of that word (or symbol) that are in your paper like this:

Once you see it, highlight it in yellow.

Hit FIND next, and then highlight the next word!

Print this out. Write down the number of total BE verbs you have in the corner – you will edit HALF of what you have found. If you have twenty-one be verbs, then change ten of them.

SAVE YOUR PAPER WITH VERBS. This is what you will turn in for part of your major grade.

We spent the rest of the day revising BE verbs and then worked on the Persuasive Essay, which is due on Tuesday.

One thing that I am noticing is that people are not using their time wisely. People are complaining about the Persuasive Essay, but they didn’t do what they were supposed to do last week. Some people have worked on that pre-writing for OVER FOUR DAYS. Most of my students chose to ignore the instructions that I left while I had a sub last week, and that is going to hurt you as well.

If you are failing by progress reports next week, I have to call home. We are getting near the end, so if you are failing, you are at the point where you have to stay after and/or do homework. You are not going to be able make up all 9 weeks worth of assignments the last week of school. Seriously. Don’t do it.