2010 Missouri Writing Project
Round Table Presentation
Verb Tenses in Multi-genre Writing
Fuqin Sun
Rationale:
The purpose of this lesson is to make aware that verb tenses affect the way how readers perceive
students’ writing because writing in inappropriate tenses can cause misunderstanding and confusion in
their compositions. The lesson is to make students practice verb tenses and write grammatically in their
multiple genre writing.
The lesson focuses on helping students of English as a Second Language (ESL students) learn
when and how to use the past, present, and future tenses in their writing. I taught technical school
students in China, and verb tenses were a big obstacle hindering my students’ English learning, they
found it hard to select tenses in their writing. Knowing the usage of verb tenses can empower students’
with strong writing abilities and polish their writing as well. According to Garrison, “Grammar is to
language what the skeleton is to body: the bones, the basic structure. Without a skeleton, a body would
be merely a mass of tissue.” Without grammar, language doesn’t make sense, like a driver who has
never read the Driver Guide.
This lesson is designed for a writing workshop when students get confused about using different
verbs tenses. I will lead the students some discussions of how to use the verb tenses appropriately, and
offer students chances to do multiple genre writing so as to improve their writing techniques and styles.
Procedure:
1. Freewrite
Students will brainstorm topics for freewriting, they can describe any setting or events, their homes,
schools, supermarkets, parks, bus stations, farms, family members, friends, teachers, neighbors,
occasions, sceneries and so on. They are expected to write a poem, an essay, a family tree, an invitation,
a commercial, a memoir, or a story in the present tense.
2. Rewrite
Students will rewrite their piece using past tense and future tense in another genre, and share their
writing with table partners, or in the large group.
3. Demonstrate
The teacher will demonstrate some verb tense writing and have students immerse in the culture of the
target language, such as introducing English holidays, customs, and lives of native speakers. For the
demonstration, I would like to choose the Chinese culture and traditions.
4. Discuss
Students will first discuss the past, present, and future verb tenses in pairs and groups of four. They will
focus on when and how to use different verb tenses and write clearly. After that, students can ask
questions about the confused verb tenses in the whole group. The teacher and volunteer students will
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provide examples.
Teaching Materials:

Computer

PowerPoint

Papers and pen to write with
Verb Tenses
Always give students chances to show examples. If there is no student response, the teacher will
provide.
The simple present tense is used for actions occurring at the time of the speaking or for actions
occurring regularly. When something happens regularly or is a permanent situation we usually use the
simple present tense.
The Forbidden City
Forbidden City (Palace Museum, gugong, zijincheng) is in the center of Beijing. It was the Chinese
imperial palace in the Ming and Qing Dynasty, served as the home of the Emperor and his household,
the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. The Forbidden City is the world's largest
palace complex (9,999 rooms), rectangular in shape, and covers 74 hectares; it is surrounded by a six
meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall. The wall has a gate on each side. There are unique and
delicately structured towers on each of the four corners of the curtain wall, which afford views over
both the palace and the city outside. The Forbidden City has splendid painted decoration on these royal
architectural wonders, and magnificent treasures; it becomes one of the most popular tourist attractions
world-wide. Sightseeing the architectures; tourists feel the hierarchical and luxurious imperial life.
Play a song Beijing Welcomes You, ask the students to pay attention to the simple present tense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XbIZqg4v7w
The simple past tense is used to talk about actions that happened at a specific time in the past.
The FORM : Verb+ed or irregular Verbs
Express action(s) in the Past
Use 1. An action started and finished at a specific time
Examples: I saw an old friend yesterday.
Use 2. A series of completed actions
This morning I washed my face, brushed my teeth, grabbed the lunch bag and ran to school.
Use 3. Duration
He lived in America for three years.
Use 4. Habits
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He always played baseball when he was in high school.
Use 5. Past Facts or Generalizations
Alice was very quiet before, but now she is pretty active.
In ancient times, there was a Chinese emperor named Qin Shihuang (259-210 B.C.), alias Ying Zheng.
He came to the throne at the age of 13, and established the first feudal empire in China’s history. He
conscripted more than 700,000 laborers to build his mausoleum, so as to ensure his peaceful, eternal
sleep. There were total 8,000 warriors and horses in Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum. It took people
38 years to finish the project, in a time when science and technology were very backward and
transportation was difficult. The mausoleum was built on the wisdom and sweat of thousands of
laboring people, which were numerous in quantity, different in style, and rich in cultural relics.
Dust of Snow
By: Robert Frost
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I ruled.
(Garrison, P. 112)
The simple future tense is used for actions that will occur in the future.
The FUTURE TENSE indicates that an action is in the future relative to the speaker or writer. The
future tense employs the helping verbs will or shall with the base form of the verb:

They will leave for Europe as soon as he comes back.

We shall overcome all the current difficulties when we arrive there.
The future is also formed with the use of a form of "go" plus the infinitive of the verb:

She is going to faint if she stays outside under the sun too long.
A Family Tree
Alice is going to have another baby in August, and then she will have a larger family: her grand parents
Susan and Edward, her parents Mary and Tom, her sons Harry and Jack, and her daughter Lisa. The
whole family will move to a larger house in New York in October, and her husband will work for a big
company in the Big Apple to earn more money, they will have an exciting trip and a happy move.
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Lyrics
Chorus
Do it, I’m doing it, I have done it
Past, present, and future, without it I’m done with
Sit back as RRR presents
This knowledge which could be common sense
It’s verb tenses!
Verse I
You use it all the time and probably do not realize
So here we go let’s unfold It right before your eyes
The suspense and mystery of verb tense
Might seem overwhelming until we make sense of it
But once we do you’re going to love it!
You’ll be running around, trying it out in public
It’s not that hard, there are just some things you got to know
Like when to use what tense, so here we go
With no delay, no more further ado
I proudly present to you verb tenses
Through a series of sentences
That’ll help you run through what the business is
And then you’ll learn it with the quickness
So just hold on to your britches!
‘Cause we’re about to get in it, get with it
We’re going to begin with the simplest, come on!
Verse II
We’re going to discuss three forms of tenses
That enable you to construct unlimited sentences
Simple, perfect, progressive, and then we’re done
So let’s begin the lesson and have some fun
I ran, I run, and I will run around a city block
But if I don’t have the proper tense, I’ll never stop
So if I ran yesterday, that’s simple
And if I run on Monday, that’s simple
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If I will run on Sunday, then that’s simple
The past, present, and future tense with simple
Verb tense, and now
Since we get that let’s jump that fence
To the next form that we’ll do
The perfect tense is number two
And it’s just as easy as the first one
So let’s continue on until we’re done
Verse III
In the perfect tense, you must add
One of these words: has, have, or had
Like, “Before last month, I had rapped.”
That’s an example of a perfect past tense
“And I have rapped everyday since.”
That’s present perfect, it’s happening, hence:
“I will have rapped” and that’s future
So now we move on to progressive, straight like a ruler
And now everybody can follow me
And all you really need Is an “-ing”
See, that’s at the end of a verb
The action is continuous if that’s what’s heard
And if I was running, that’s progressive past
But since I am running You do the math!
And without you I’ll be running till I just fall out
But you know your verb tenses, so you can call out,
“Stop!”
Work Cited:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XbIZqg4v7w
http://www.educationalrap.com/song/verb-tenses.html
Elbow P. (2000). Everyone Can Write. New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Gallagher, K. (2006). Teaching adolescent writers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse
Publishers.
Garrison, R. H. (1985). How a writer works (Revised ed. ). New York: HarperCollins.
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