The KISS Grammar Workbooks Return to: The Child's World: Third Reader
(Code and Color Key)
The Birds of Killingworth
-- Adapted from Longfellow
[Click here for the text.]

Ex # 4 Compound Main Clauses
Analysis Key

1. The sparrows were chirping, | and hungry crows were calling loudly {for food}. |

2. The farmers {of Killingworth} were plowing the fields (DO), | and the broken

clods, too, told {of spring}. |

3. I put up scarecrows (DO), | but the birds fly {by them} and seem to laugh [#1] {at them}. |

4. Harvest time came, | but there was no harvest (PN). |

5. The summer came, | and all the birds were dead (PA). |

6. {From the trees} caterpillars dropped down {upon the women's bonnets}, |

and they [#2] screamed and ran. |

7. The men were wrong (PA), | -- something must be done (P). |

Notes
1. At this level, I would accept "seem to laugh" as the finite verb. When the students get to infinitives (KISS Level Four), they should see "to laugh" as an infinitive. At that point, some students will see "to laugh" as a direct object; others will see it as an adverb to "seem."
2. There is a problem in pronoun reference here. (And this sentence is verbatim from the story.) The antecedent (reference) of "they" is unclear -- grammatically, it could be the bonnets or the caterpillars, but in terms of meaning it is the women.