Notes 1. The sentence "If you go straight again and turn right is my room." is awkward because there is no subject for "is." I would suggest revision to "If you go straight again and turn right, there is my room." I would not press this point with a young student because the student probably cannot consciously disentangle the subordinate clause [If you go straight again and turn right] from the incomplete "is my room." 2. The problem in this sentence is similar to that discussed in Note 1, but it is an even clearer example of what Mina Shaughnessy would have called a "slipped pattern." Having started with "If you go," the writer let that pattern slip away and wrote the complete sentence "Across the hall is a bathroom." 3. "Room" here can be considered either the subject or a predicate noun because one or the other is missing. 4. In finding the complement for "is," many students will realize that this sentence is incorrect. "Is" means "equals," but the room does not equal just the walls and carpet. The obvious thing to do, of course, is to change "is" to "has." Some students will not realize the error on their own, but, if they have been using the KISS Approach, they will understand it once it has been pointed out to them. 5. This is another slipped pattern which most students will correct on their own (to "has") once they realize that the subject of "have" is "room" (not "mom and dads). When students don't correct it, I simply repeat "The room have" until students correct me. (Sometimes I have to say it three or four times, but they all eventually catch on.) 6. In finding the subject and verb, students will have to focus on the fact that "Thats" here means "That is" and thus should be written as "That's." 7. Analyzing real texts uncovers interesting problems that are rarely covered in traditional grammar books. One could argue that there is a subject/verb/complement agreement error here. If "bedrooms" is a predicate noun, then it should equal the subject in number and have a plural verb. Should that question arise (I would not bring it up unless a student did), I would sugggest a different analysis -- "That's all *of* the bedrooms, thereby making "all" the predicate (pro)noun. 8. At this level, students will probably prefer to see "let's" ("let us") as a verb and its direct object. They will not know what to do with "go." When they get to verbals, they will see "us" as the subject of the infinitive "go," and "go" (with its subject "us") as the direct object. 9. Some traditionalists would prefer to see "There" as an expletive and "T.V." as the subject. I accept that analysis from students who have learned and prefer it, but I see no reason to teach it. Students will be confused about what to do with the following "couch" and "chair." They are discussed in Level Three. 10. Although most people probably would not notice it, some people would see an error in subject/verb agreement here. Since there are numerous predicate nouns (and the predicate nouns should equal the subject in number), the verb should be plural. 11. Expect students to identify "play"
as a finite verb. The normal test to distinguish a finite verb from a verbal
is to make a small sentence with the verb in question. For example, in
the sentence "They were watching Bob play soccer," "Bob play soccer" is
not a sentence. In this case, with a plural subject, that test doesn't
work, but note that if we replace "my brother and his friends" with a pronoun,
we get "was watching them play soccer," and "them play soccer" is not an
acceptable sentence.
12. Students will see that the answer to the question "wanted what?" is obviously "to go," but they will not know what "to go" is. If they ask, I simply state that it is an infinitive which they will study at a later level. 13. At level five, we will consider the noun absolute, "me crying" as the direct object, but students will obviously not see this at this level. 14. Students will recognize "to watch T.V." as the D.O. of "like," but I have left it unmarked because they will not recognize it as an infinitive. 15. Most grammar books don't deal with this in much detail (if at all), but note how what is traditionally called an interrogative pronoun also functions as the, in this case, predicate noun -- "you are going to be what?" 16. I have "uncounted" the appositives "Curt" and "Michelle." 17. Actually, I let the grammarians argue about whether "great," in "I feel great," and "awful," in "I feel awful," are predicate adjectives or simply adverbs. From students I accept either interpretation. 18. Don't expect students to identify clauses that function as complements (or subjects) until they get to clauses. 19. At this level, students may prefer to view "to get rid of" as the verb and "Disney Channel" and "junk" as direct objects. 20. At this level, I accept "us" as a direct object, but at level four (verbals), we look at the infinite phrase "us keep it" as the D.O. of "let." 21. In the process of identifying subjects and verbs, students will be much more likely to see the reason for the apostrophe in "we're." 22. Although I would not expect students
working at Level One to identify "left" (and "right" in the following line),
as objects of ellipsed prepositions (*to the* left), students at Level
Two will easily understand this.
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