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Improve the writing ability of your students by exploring these four key adjective areas.
1) Adjectives are the words that we use to add details to a noun.
Each adjective gives the reader more information about the noun.
Watch how the simple idea of a cake can be implemented with adjectives.
cake
birthday cake
rainbow birthday cake
spectacular rainbow birthday cake
Watch how a different set of adjectives creates something very different.
cake
tea cake
cinnamon tea cake
simple cinnamon tea cake
Lower grade students can start looking at the idea of adjectives by exploring the ones that are found in the Dolche high frequency sight word list: big, blue, funny, little, three, two, yellow, black, brown, four, good, new , pretty, white, round, best, cold, fast, first, five, green, clean, eight, hot, kind, light, long, seven, full, six, small, ten, warm. These can be easily built on by exploring similar types of adjectives. What other colors are there? What other numbers are there? What other "size" adjectives are there? What other "temperature" adjectives are there?
Middle and upper grade students can begin a class exploration of all the adjectives that they can think of. This can be a simple extension of a class conversation where you write all the students examples on the board. Students could then write three or four sentences that use some of these adjectives.
2) There are many kinds of adjectives.
Adjectives make up a very large group of words. It is impossible to say exactly how many because the English language is constantly evolving. However, the latest 20 volume Oxford Dictionary contains approximately 50 000 adjectives. Not surprisingly, this very large group of words can be divided into sub-groups. Number, opinion, dimension, age, shape, color, origin and material are examples of adjective sub-groups.
Looking more closely at these groups is a great way to strengthen your students' understanding of adjectives.
3) Accuracy is important. Similar adjectives can have subtle differences in meaning.
Adjectives that seem the same can have slight differences in meaning. For example, smug, joyful, ecstatic and pleased all mean happy. However, each one is a different type of happy. It is these differences that gives the writer real control over the images that their words create.
The smug girl ate the jelly beans.
The ecstatic girl ate the jelly beans.
The pleasant girl ate the jelly beans.
Each sentence has a different meaning created exclusively by the adjective. The writer needs to choose the adjective that accurately conveys the meaning they want.
4) Adjectives are a powerful way to introduce characters in a story.
Adjectives are essential when creating characters in a narrative.
Exploring the adjectives that can be used to describe characters will build up your students' repertoire. At the moment they may not be able to think of words like immaculate, dashing, ambitious, haggard or dynamic. Class discussions, brainstorming sessions, list building, and comparison activities will increase the number of personality adjectives that they access when describing characters and further improve the quality of their narratives.
Explore these four areas with your students, the next time you're teaching your adjectives and their understanding and use of adjectives will improve.
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