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Focusing on Complements: "Why the Cat always Falls upon her Feet"
[For the complete text, click here.]
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Exercise # 1 | AK | G5 | L1.3 S/V/Mix |
Exercise # 2 | AK | G5 | L1.3 S/V/Mix |
Exercise # 3 | AK | G5 | L1.3 S/V/Mix |
Exercise # 4 | AK | ![]() |
L3.1.1 CMC |
Exercise # 5 | AK | L3.1.2 SC (Adj & Adv) | |
Exercise # 6 | AK | - | |
" Punct | - | L6.1 |
Students often have trouble learning
to distinguish the types of complements, so this set of exercises is geared
to help them. It is based on the complete text of "Why the Cat always Falls
upon her Feet," which is a very short tale. I selected this story both
because it is short and because many of the sentences in it are relatively
simple. Having taken the time to separate the sentences into types for
exercises, I was a bit surprised to see that there are no predicate nouns
in the usable sentences, but, having done the hard part, I decided to proceed
anyway.
The first seven exercises are the ones that you
should use. The first three consist of six sentences each, but the sentences
are relatively short. Individual sentences in these exercises may include
zero complements, predicate adjectives, or direct objects, but there will
be only one pattern in each sentence. Note that there may be more than
one S/V/C pattern in any sentence. (I considered putting all the sentences
with S/V patterns, etc. together in one exercise, but that would be too
easy.) The next four exercises consist of two sentences each, and within
any sentence students will find more than one type of S/V/C pattern.
If they do not already have it, give the
students the instructional material on finding
complements (or a variation thereof). Then simply have them analyze
and review the sentences. The best way to use these exercises, especially
in a classroom situation, is to assign one exercise for every other class.
That way the students can do an exercise, and review it in class before
they try the next one. To make up for the lack of predicate nouns in these
sentences, you might want to have the students create an S/V/PN sentence
for each of the three major characters: