Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas (1656

129

KISS Grammar

Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas (1656}

Analysis Keys and Notes for Teachers

for

A Level 3.2 Workbook

Free, from the KISS Grammar Web Site

KISSGrammar.org

This is the “Teachers” Book” for a KISS Level 3.2 workbook. It contains some suggestions for teaching KISS Level 3.2 and the analysis keys for the exercises. The keys in this book have been numbered to match the students’ workbook. Note that in the printable books, instructional materials (and special notes for teachers) appear in green text in the table of contents.

December, 2012

Contents

Introduction for Teachers and Parents 4

Applying KISS to Students’ Own Reading and Writing 5

KISS Level 3. 2. 1 - Ellipsis in Clauses 6

Notes for Teachers 6

Ex. 1.a. -Ellipsed Finite Verbs in Marshall’s Stories of Robin Hood 10

Ex. 1.b. - From My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales 10

Ex. 2. - From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett 11

Ex. 3. - From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne 13

Ex. 4. - Semi-Reducing Clauses 16

Ex. 5. - Prepositional Phrase or Ellipsed Clause? Based on Black Beauty 17

Ex. 6. - The Opening of “Snow-White and Rose-Red” 18

KISS Level 3. 2. 2 - “So” and “For” as Conjunctions 19

Notes for Teachers 19

Some Theoretical Observations 20

Ex. 1.a. - Famous (or Interesting) Quotations 27

Ex. 1.b. - From Vredenburg’s My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales 28

KISS Level 3.2.3 - Subordinate Clauses - Direct Object or Interjection? 29

Notes for Teachers 29

1. Exploring Clauses: Main Clause or Subordinate? 34

Ex. 1. Based on “The Snow Queen,” by Hans ChristianAndersen 34

2. Subordinate Clauses as Interjections 35

Ex. 2. From Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas 35

3. Interjection or Direct Object? 38

Ex. 3.a From Edric Vredenburg’s“Bluebeard” 38

Ex. 3.b From Edric Vredenburg’s My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales 39

4. Exercises in Punctuation 41

Ex. 4.a * From “How the Camel Got His Hump,” by Rudyard Kipling 41

Ex. 4.b * From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 41

5 A Passage for Analysis 45

Ex. 5. A 496-word Sentence from Pinocchio, The Tale of a Puppet 45

KISS Level 3.2.4 - Advanced Questions about Clauses 49

Notes for Teachers 49

Introduction for Teachers and Parents

The study of grammar is a science.

The teaching of grammar is an art.

I hope you have found KISS Grammar to be both productive and enjoyable to teach. This book adds advanced questions about clauses plus four Level 5 constructions to the students’ analytical toolboxes. The “Advanced Questions about Clauses” should be relatively easy for students who have mastered KISS Level 3.1.

There are three functions of clauses that are not covered in KISS Level 3, but they are covered in the Level 5 constructions that are included in this book. The three are Appositives, Delayed Subjects, and Retained Complements after Passive Voice.

Four Level 5 Constructions

Remember that if you are teaching KISS in a limited amount of time, Level 5 constructions are those that can be skipped so that you can cover the most important concepts first. The grade-level books, however, are designed to present approximately a year’s worth of material per book. Thus, book covers four Level 5 constructions.

Even if your students are already familiar with it, I strongly suggest you review the KISS Psycholinguistic Model with them. (See the “Printable Books Page.”) The model changes the study of grammar into the study of how the human mind processes language, and it also justifies the rules of punctuation.
If you still feel uncomfortable with your own knowledge of grammar, you might want to read “Teaching Grammar with the KISS Approach: ‘I Don't Know’” in the Background Essays for KISS Grammar.

General Reminders:

1. Although the ability to identify constructions is essential, once students have the ability, such exercises may become boring. You may therefore want to modify some of the directions. For example, punctuation exercises often ask students to identify constructions as well as fix the punctuation. You may want to change these to simply fixing and discussing the punctuation. The same is true for some of the exercises on logic.

2. The instructional material in these “complete” books is the same for every Level 3.2 book, regardless of grade-level of the students for whom they are intended. (Format and graphics may change, and as I receive feedback from teachers, some of the explanations may change.) You should at least browse through the relevant “booklets” for the KISS Levels. They include explanations for the nature and sequencing of exercises, as well as comments unusual cases. (Repeating and updating this material in each of the eight “complete” Level 3.2 books does not make sense.)

3. Emphasize the method.

Applying KISS to Students’ Own Reading and Writing

The primary objective of KISS is to enable students to intelligently discuss the grammar of anything that they read and especially anything that they write. Those who understand KISS concepts could, theoretically, use the Master Books and then use only the students’ own writing for exercise materials. But particularly in classrooms, this would be impractical.
Imagine the dilemma of a teacher with twenty students in classroom. The students have been given the instructional material on subjects and verbs, and then the students immediately all try to find the subjects and verbs in a short passage that they wrote. The teacher would go nuts trying to check all of this. In other words, it makes much more sense for the students to all do a few of the same exercise, an exercise that can then be reviewed in class. KISS primarily provides the latter type of exercises.
Teachers should regularly supplement these exercises by having students analyze short passages from their own writing. The students can simply apply the directions they have been using to the analysis of their own writing. (In other words, if they are working at KISS Level Three, they would analyze their own writing through clauses.) The students can then work in small groups to check and discuss each others’ work. How often teachers should do this is an aspect of the art of teaching. But the more you do this, the more that you will probably see interested, motivated students.

KISS Level 3. 2. 1 - Ellipsis in Clauses

Notes for Teachers

Traditional grammarians speak of “ellipsis”; modern linguists discuss “reduction.” As the instructional material suggests, they are two different perspectives of the same thing — we simply leave out words, often connecting or repetitious words, if the context provides their meaning. Thus, when we say “Come in,” the context provides both the subject and the object of the preposition “in.” (“In” means whatever place the speaker is “in.” We won’t say “Come in,” if we are outside.)

Ellipsis is a concept, not a construction, and you will find it used in various places in the analysis keys. But to help students understand the concept, we can provide examples of the ways in which ellipsis is typically used.

As the explanation of semi-reduced clauses suggests, ellipsis is an extremely important concept. Indeed, most compounding, gerundives, appositives, post-positioned adjectives, and noun absolutes can be seen as the result of reduction/ellipsis.

In instructional materials and analysis keys, KISS used asterisks to insert ellipsed words.

The Exercises in KISS Level 3.2.1

Exercises 1 a & b - Ellipsis in S/V/C Patterns

Writers fairly frequently ellipse finite verbs in parallel patterns based on the same verb but with different subjects and complements:

Her figure was majestic, her manners charming, her whole appearance beautiful beyond words.

Her figure was majestic, her manners *were* charming, her whole appearance *was* beautiful beyond words.

Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.—George Chapman

Flatterers look like friends, as wolves *look like* like dogs.

Exercise 2 - Ellipsis in Subordinate Clauses

After some words, especially "than" and "as," words are ellipsed in subordinate clauses:

He looked gloomier than ever.

means

He looked gloomier [than *he had* ever *looked before*]."

He classified shirts and suits as expertly as birds and mammals.

means

He classified shirts and suits as expertly [as *he classified* birds and mammals].

They worked as hard as possible.

means

They worked as hard [as it is possible to work].

Exercise 3 - Semi-Reduced Clauses

Semi-reduced clauses are not very frequent, primarily because they derive mainly from those adverbial conjunctions that do not also function as prepositions. Compare the difference:

[After they won the game,] they had a party.

{After winning the game}, they had a party.

[When they were playing a game, ] they did not want to be distracted.

[When playing a game, ] they did not want to be distracted.

The reduction of a subordinate conjunction such as “after,” which can also function as a preposition, results in a prepositional phrase with a gerund as its object. But “when” is not considered a preposition, and thus to explain this case, we need to refer to ellipsis.

Usually, the ellipsed subject is in the clause that the semi-reduced clause modifies. Thus, when in students’ writing it is not, it is tempting to mark these as a form of dangling modifier. But in the work of professional writers, the ellipsed subject may be implicit in the context. Consider the following sentence from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter:

While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of the study, and the minister said, “Come in!”--not wholly devoid of an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. (The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings, ed. Leland S. Person. Norton Critical Edition, 2005, 142.)