Summer Grammar and Writing Packet for Rising 7th Graders
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I.
Happy Verbs!!!
You’ve studied verbs all through your years leading to now. The happiest creative verbs
are active, not passive or state-of-being! Action verbs enhance your creative writing.
Rewrite the following sentences to get rid of the weak passive verb and replace it with a
strong, accurate active verb. You may rewrite the sentence entirely. Verbs are in bold.
Example: The chairs are everywhere in the classroom; the teacher is concerned about
how to get the girls into groups with them this way.
Rewrite: Chairs lay all about the place in this room, and the chaos disrupts the teacher’s
thoughts as she desperately tries to get the girls into groupings.
Now it’s your turn. Be creative. Do NOT use any TO BE verbs, such as: is, was, were, have
been, will be, etc. Rewrite the following sentences to have ONLY strong action verbs!
1.
Mary is the best student in the class, and she is a girl who likes to read a lot.
2. The classroom is silent when the students are busy with their writing.
3. She is the teacher of all the seventh grade French students, and the students are
happy to have her.
4. Everyone is excited about coming to the party, but nothing is definite yet.
5. The horse is a thoroughbred, and the girl is in love with him because he is a good
jumper.
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II.
Run-On Chaos
Run-on or fused sentences can confuse your reader and make your prose look
unprofessional. A comma is not a strong enough punctuation mark to separate two
complete sentences. Instead, you should use: a period; a comma and a conjunction, or a
semicolon. See my example.
RUN-ON: She loves to go to the store for her mother, her mother hurt her ankle and
cannot go herself.
CORRECTED: She loves to go to the store for her mother, since her mother hurt her
ankle and cannot go herself.
OR: She loves to go to the store for her mother. Her
mother hurt her ankle and cannot go herself.
Now it’s your turn. Fix all the following run-on sentences, but if a sentence is NOT a runon, label it CORRECT. You can mark the punctuation right on the sentence with a RED PEN.
1.
Hannah and Daisy stayed at school instead of going on the field trip, both of them
had hurt their ankles in sports and couldn’t do all the walking that was required.
2. Discovering French is the name of the sixth grade text book that Madame Beauvois
uses, it is a really interesting text it has a lot of fun stories and good exercises
that help a student learn the language.
3. Truman Capote is an amazing author who uses sentences that sometimes go on for
half a page (since he uses a lot of parenthetical expressions), and interestingly
enough, he was the best friend of Harper Lee, who wrote one of my all-time
favorite books, To Kill A Mockingbird, which some people are now saying was mostly
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Capote’s writing anyways; however, I believe that the style is different enough
from Capote’s style to say that Harper Lee really did write the book herself.
4. The seventh grade class went on a field trip to the Flower Mart last year; the
Flower Mart is a fun place to buy jewelry and gifts for Mother’s Day, Mother’s Day
is always on a Sunday, the Flower Mart is always on a weekday before Mother’s Day.
5. Mrs. Kasey had to proctor the seventh grade study hall remarking on how nice they
all were, she said she would happily come back to substitute whenever needed..
6. Mrs. Casey helped with the seventh grade luncheon, Mrs. Martin brought the food,
Mrs. Ellison made the programs.
III.
Precise, preppy prepositions
You have studied prepositions and prepositional phrases. A preposition is a directional word
like at, in, to, under, over, between, among, and others. Whatever a bird can be in
relationship to a tree is a preposition. The bird can be under the tree, over the tree,
among the branches, in the tree, above the tree, beside the tree, etc. In these
prepositional phrases, the noun tree is the object of the preposition.
Now it’s your turn. UNDERLINE all the prepositional phrases in the excerpt from
“The Lagoon” below:
“We ran our canoe on the white beach of a little bay close to a long tongue of land that
seemed to bar our road; a long wooded cape going far into the sea. My brother knew that
place. Beyond the cape a river has its entrance, and through the jungle of that land there
Summer Grammar and Writing Packet for Rising 7th Graders
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is a narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice. Then we lay down to sleep on the soft
sand in the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I
heard her cry of alarm. We leaped up. The sun was halfway down the sky already, and
coming in sight in the opening of the bay we saw a prau manned by many paddlers. We
knew it at once; it was one of our Rajah’s praus. They were watching the shore, and saw us.
They beat the gong, and turned the head of the prau into the bay. I felt my heart become
weak into my breast. Diamelen sat on the sand and covered her face. There was no escape
by sea. My brother laughed…”
Now it’s your turn AGAIN. Take the following sentences and add creative details to
them using three prepositional phrases for each sentence.
1.
We walked.
2. She knew.
3. I danced.
4. It flew.
5. Whoever would have guessed?
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IV.
Queen Comma and her Court
Punctuation marks are the road map markers that allow your readers to read your
prose precisely as you desire. When you read your prose aloud and significantly
pause, you usually need a period. If, however, you have a slight pause, chances are
you may only need a comma. Remember, commas are only Queens; they cannot be
King Periods and hold apart two independent clauses, but they are needed so often
that they are indeed royal. In many cases, we need a pair of them.
Now it’s your turn: Insert commas with your red pen into the sentences
below, where they are needed.
1.
Arthur Miller the great playwright who wrote The Crucible was also Marilyn
Monroe’s husband and it is said he was madly in love with her up until he died
even though she had left him.
2. Harper Lee the author of To Kill A Mockingbird was the best friend of
Truman Capote the author of “The Thanksgiving Visitor” and “A Christmas
Memory” and they both lived in Maycomb County Alabama.
3. In mythology Pandora received a box a wedding present from her father
Zeus and she desired to open it; however it had a label that read “Do Not
Open – Under Penalty of Law!”
4. Zach said “Why do you want to go to the Gilman Mixer? Is it because they
have basketball there or is it because you like to dance?”
5. Walking into my classroom for the first time in September I discovered that
I knew two of the new girls Sally and Shaney.
6. The great female poet Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester
Massachusetts on February 8 1911 and died on October 6 1979 which makes
her a fairly contemporary poet which is part of the reason our class loved
reading her poems especially “Filling Station” and “One Art” two of her most
famous.
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V.
Sunny Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement
Correct pronoun-antecedent agreement areas in the following
sentences using your red pen. Hint: Everyone, somebody, and
each are singular and need singular pronouns to agree. Note
my example. Ex: Each senior had their nails done for prom.
(This sentence should read: Each senior had HER nails
done for prom.)
1.
Everyone had their new uniforms on for the first day of school,
2. Somebody needs to bring their umbrella along on the field trip so
that anybody who needs one can use it.
3. Each of the girls put their books and school supplies into their
lockers for safe-keeping.
4. When eighth graders come into the school, you know they are ready
to learn during their last great year in middle school.
5. All the eighth graders are already planning what dress they will wear
to the mixer.
6. Each girl wants to look beautiful on their prom night.
7. If students want to be healthy, you must eat a lot of fruit and
vegetables.
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8. People everywhere in the U.S. must cherish his or her freedom,
because freedom is not guaranteed.
9. Rain and wind make storms very scary. It can destroy property and
even cause deaths.
10. If anybody is late, they’ll get into trouble, and the bus will leave
without them.
WARNING: Do not flip this
page until you have finished
reading If You Come Softly,
because it will spoil the
ending!!!
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VI.
Writing: Do this ONLY AFTER reading If You Come Softly by
Jacqueline Woodson. In the following space and on any other
pages if needed, write an alternate or different ending to the
required novel If You Come Softly. It is sort of a Romeo and
Juliet story. You may have the ending be happy or even sadder
than it is. (Hint: Jacqueline Woodson, the author, has a sequel
where Jeremiah comes back to Ellie as a specter or ghost and
continues a spiritual relationship with her.)