DAY 21 - Evaluation continued

Today, we completed the last five words in Unit 3 of the vocabulary book.  The quiz for unit three will be late next week, and will include MLA formatting material that we will cover in the next several days.  We also got through Lesson 7 of the Sentence Diagramming workbook, which covered direct objects.  In order to tell what a direct object is successfully, the book recommends you ask Whom? or What? about the subject and verb.

For example, Jack kicked the ball.  Jack is the subject, and the verb is kicked.  So, Jack kicked what?  Jack kicked the ball.  The ball is the direct object.

Here's the problem: let's say you have the sentence, Jack became a doctor.  The question works here, too (What did Jack become?), but doctor isn't a direct object: it's a predicate nominative.  Predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives follow linking verbs (e.g. forms of be, become, get [when it means become], smell, taste, seem, appear, sound, look and feel).  Direct objects, when there are any, follow non-linking verbs:

These sentences all have direct objects (they'll follow a straight up-and-down line in a sentence diagram):

Jacked kicked the ball.

Amy liked the movie.

Jack bruised his shin.

Amy told a secret.

These sentences all have predicate nominatives or predicate adjectives (they'll follow a backslash in a sentence diagram):

Jack became a doctor.

Amy felt powerful.

Jack got angry.

Amy is a critic.

These sentences all have non-linking verbs AND no direct objects.

Jack swore.

Amy stared.

Jack cheered.

Amy ran.

Be sure you understand exactly how predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives and direct objects all operate.  If you have questions, bring them with you to class.

After we covered that information, you judged two recitations, available online.  Scroll down on the page to Teal Van Dyck reciting "Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood and Shawntay Henry reciting "Frederick Douglass" by Robert E. Hayden.  There are two more that we will look in the next class.

YOUR HOMEWORK: 

1. Complete 5 sentences on the wikispace.

2. Memorize the first 10 lines of your poem, the poet and the title of your poem.  You will need to be able to write down all of them from memory by the next class.  This will count as a reading quiz!