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KISS Grammar:
Level
6.4 Research Projects
Originally, this was the home
for the "Studies in the Syntax of Little Words" simply because these exercises
do not fit in the other KISS sections. It has now been expanded to include
other research projects. The primary objective of these exercises is to
teach students how to make their own judgments about grammar. For more
research studies, see Level 6.5 - Statistical
Stylistics.
A green background (white for green
rows) in the right (grade-level) column
indicates that the exercise is in the printable
version.
| Studies
in the Syntax of Little Words |
| Little words cause the biggest analytical
problems, so this is a collection of some of the words for studying some
of the problems. |
These exercises have been deleted from the Grade-Level Books.
These exercises have been deleted from the Grade-Level Books.
| Shakespeare's
Romeo
& Juliet (2.1. 43-51) |
AK |
|
ToC |
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| (Includes no verbals, a third-level embedded clause, an
appositive, direct address, and "but" used as a coordinating conjunction,
as an adverb, and as a preposition.) |
These exercises have been deleted from the Grade-Level Books.
| Projects
for KISS Level 1 |
| L1.6
Pronouns as Predicate Nouns -- A Research Project on the Use of Nominative
or Objective Case |
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Give each student in the class
five copies of Exercise
6b without the instructions for identifying the constructions. Have
each student ask five different people to circle the pronoun that they
would use. (You might want to include space at the end for "Comments.")
Then have the class count how many people gave each answer for each question.
The class can then discuss the results in terms of "formal" vs. "popular"
grammar.
To make the results more interesting you can
include at the top of each sheet a request for information about age (10-20,
21-30, etc.). sex ("m" or "f"), educational level (high school grad, years
of college,) and or degree (B.S., M.A., Ph.D.). It would be particularly
interesting to see how people with degrees in English respond. |
| Projects
for KISS Level 2 |
| The
Public's Understanding of Grammar -- A Survey |
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Make a short survey form
like the one below. Include some or all of the questions below. You can
also add questions that interest you, but keep it short. Make copies and
take them to the mall or any other place where you might find people who
would agree to fill it in. After you collect the data, your teacher may
ask you to write a short report about it and/or discuss the results with
your classmates.
A Survey about Grammar
1. Is it acceptable to begin a written sentence with "But"?
2. Why?
3. Is the following sentence grammatically correct? Bill is better
at baseball then Mary is.
4. If the sentence in # 3 is incorrect, how would you fix it?
5. Underline the subjects once and their verbs twice in the following
sentences.
a.) The children were playing in their yards, and the entire
street was at peace.
b.) They saw Tom in the park playing baseball.
c.) To win the game made Sarah happy.
Please indicate your age group:
____ 10-19
____ 20-29 |
____ 30-39
____ 40-49 |
____ 50-59
____60 or above |
Please indicate your level of education:
____ some high school
____ high school diploma
____ started college |
____ college degree
____ years of graduate work
____ graduate work degree |
| Please indicate your gender: |
____ female |
____ male |
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| Beginning
a Sentence with "And," "Or," or "But" |
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Select a text, count the
number of sentences in it, and also count the number of sentences that
begin with "And," "Or," or "But." Divide the number of sentences that begin
with each word by the total number of sentences to see how often various
texts (or writers) violate the common school rule against beginning a sentence
with "But."
Or you can just search larger texts
electronically for each of the three words. This approach will enable you
do get more data faster. (You can forget about counting the total number
of sentences--just look for the exceptions.) Your teacher may also have
the class work individually or in small groups to explore an entire newspaper
or magazine by assigning pages or articles to different students. |
| Projects
for KISS Level 3 |
| A
Computer Search for the "Which" Fragment |
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Most teachers have been taught
that beginning a main clause with "Which" can create a fragment.
As a result, they often correct such sentences in their student's writing.
But not all writers follow this "rule." For example, George F. Will, a
recognized excellent writer, began his article "The inexorable march of
creative destruction" with the following paragraph. Note the beginning
of the last sentence:
In 1886, a shipment of $25 watches from a Chicago jeweler was
rejected by the addressee in Redwood Falls, Minn. The jeweler offered to
sell the undeliverable goods for $12 apiece to a railroad station agent,
who could then sell them to other agents, of whom there were more than
20,000. Which is what the agent, 23-year-old Richard Warren Sears, did.
(The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 24, 2012.)
Will uses "which" as the subject of the main clause, but many teachers
would want their students to use a "That" in place of "Which."
Search electronic texts for "which" (the word
is not that common) to see if you can find more examples of this technically
"Which" fragment. (For more on this, see KISS
"'Which' Fragment" collection, a link to which is in the on-line Level
3.2.4 book.) |
| Projects
for KISS Level 4 |
| Definitions
of Grammatical Terms |
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To see how different grammar
books define terms differently, search both the internet and as many grammar
textbooks as you can find for definitions of one or more of the following
terms:
noun
verb
adjective
adverb |
clause
main clause
independent clause
subordinate clause
dependent clause |
verbal
verbid
gerundive
appositive
subjunctive mood |
Write a description of what you found about one of the above.. |
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