Expanding Descriptive Verb Use

One of the most important steps in improving writing skills is expanding the use of more descriptive language when describing actions. Students tend to repeat verb usage: He said..., She told him..., She asked..., He ran quickly..., He walked across the room.... The target of this lesson plan is to get students more aware of the subtle variations that they can employ by using more descriptive verbs such as: He insisted on..., She giggled..., They nibbled on..., etc. Aim Improve descriptive verb usage in writing Activity Vocabulary expansion activity followed by writing activity focusing on expanding on a bare-bones extract Level Upper intermediate to advanced Outline Write the verbs say, laugh, walk, eat, think, drink on the board and ask students to divide into small groups to think up as many synonyms for these verbs as they can.Once students have finished this exercise, pool the results together as a class. You may want to have a student take notes and photocopy the class results.Have students return to their groups to do the exercise below matching general meaning verbs to more specific verbs.Once students have finished, compare answers as a class. Your acting abilities might be called for to explain the subtle differences between a number of the verbs.Next, ask students to write a simple story about something that has recently happened to them. Instruct them to use simple verbs such as say, do, make, tell, walk, etc.Have students pair up and exchange their stories. Each student should then elaborate the texts of the other student by using as many verbs previously studied as they can.Once students have finished and compared their stories, the class can have some fun reading the stories aloud. Interesting Writing Match the more specific verbs to the general meaning verbs in column one.​ General Verbs tell move say laugh eat drink throw run move hold walk Specific Verbs exclaim toss stagger munch slurp twist writhe hurl sip order swallow insist giggle clutch fidget chuckle sprint mutter wander instruct nibble gulp snigger lob hug trudge munch jog mention wriggle bend grasp stagger whisper pass swallow Related Lessons Writing Storms Short writing exercises on assigned tasks Basic Essay Writing Style An overview of basic essay writing style

Triumph of Free Will in Anthony Burgess A Clockwork...

Triumph of Free Will in A Clockwork Orange Amidst a population composed of perfectly conditioned automatons, is a picture of a society that is slowly rotting from within. Alex, the Faustian protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, and a sadistic and depraved gang leader, preys on the weak and the innocent. Although perhaps misguided, his conscientiousness of his evil nature indicates his capacity to understand morality and deny its practice. When society attempts to force goodness upon Alex, he becomes the victim. Through his innovative style, manifested by both the use of original language and satirical structure, British author Anthony Burgess presents in his novella A Clockwork Orange, the moral triumph of free will within the†¦show more content†¦The melodic nature of the language creates vivid imagery, glorifying Alex as an artist (Tilton 107), and furthers the aesthetics of violence. Because Alex’s alienation from a robotic society serves as the manifest purpose of the slang language, the reader must quickly i dentify with Alex in order to understand the contrived language, and also to empathize with Alex’s unjust world. Considering the severity of Alex’s corruption , his society deems that it is the absolute lawful duty to purify his nature, but this arouses the debate over whether the origin of Alex’s depravity is in fact his inborn nature, or whether it was the result of an influential society. According to philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, man is born good but it is society and civilization which corrupts him (Mazour 423). Following a more Hobbesian approach, comparable to the doctrine of original sin, officials in Burgess’s novel deem that Alex was born evil and must be changed into good. Although these two views contrast each other in the sense that they emphasize innate good or innate evil, they are similar in the sense that they both profess predestined nature. When Alex is questioned by a mentor as to the origins of his delinquency, he adamantly dictates that he willfully chooses to be bad, that lewdies are good because they like it (40) and that he behaves with such am oral intent simply because he likes to do so(40).Show MoreRelatedComparison of a Clockwork Orange and Lord of the Flies2273 Words   |  10 Pagesâ€Å"Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.†Ã‚   How do Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange and William Golding in Lord of the Flies reflect violence and social responsibility? Both Lord of the Flies, first published in 1954 and A Clockwork Orange, published eight years later, focus on the inherent human capabilities for evil as well as good. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously posits that ‘whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and

Boys and Girl free essay sample

Boys and Girls, a short story by Alice Munro, deals with the theme of female role in society, but more so with the theme of growing up. The narrators journey to acceptance of her female role is more important in the sense that it is her transition into adulthood than for the exact role she is growing into. However, as the narrators role changes, conflict between masculinity and femininity occurs. Munro uses the narrators parents as symbolic of their sexes, where the narrator’s, the girl’s mother is always in the house doing the house chores where else the father works outside the home in the fox farm doing hard work. From the very beginning, the writer portrays the girl as the subject of the profound unfairness of sex-role stereotyping. Thus becoming a ‘‘girl’’ on the way to womanhood is a time fraught with difficulties for the young protagonist because she senses that women are considered the social inferiors of men. We will write a custom essay sample on Boys and Girl or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Knowing that she is expected to become a girl and conform to societys beliefs and norms, she expresses her desire to rebel against what is expected. Initially, she tries to prevent this from occurring by resisting her parents’ and grandparents’ attempts to train her in the likes, habits, behavior, and work of women. Unrealistically, the narrator believes that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. Furthermore, the writer brings out the theme through the characters in the story, for instance the girl’s mother where the narrator describe her mothers appearance as that of a stereotypical farm wife, with an apron and a kerchief on her head, no time to spend on her appearance. The narrator is given jobs to do in the house in the morning, especially at canning time, and tries to escape the confines of the kitchen for outside work as soon as possible every day. She expresses her literal love/hate relationship with her mother, since she knows she is love, but feels she has to watch her back since her mother can no longer be trusted as the girl witnessed how on several occasions her mother persistently negotiated with her father about getting the girl to work in the house more. Therefore, it is shown that the writer’s treatment of the theme gender stereotyping and the female role in a traditional, patriarchal family is through the characters in this story. In order to teach this short story of Boys and Girls, I have chosen an extract from this story that brings out the theme by relating it to the characters. I have chosen to do it as shown in the following task sheets.

The Sixth Sense free essay sample

Night Shyamalan uses symbolism in this film to give it a creepy atmosphere. The names of most of the characters are symbolic, they relate to things that are dark and may reflect to the personality of the person. For example, Dr. Malcolm Crowe, his last name is Crowe like a crow, which is the symbol of evil or dark, dead things, and in the end he is dead. Cole’s name is symbolic because of Cole, which is like cold which is what happens when ghosts get angry; Sear his last name is symbolic because it is like the word seer which is a person that is a visionary or someone that can see things that others can’t, like Cole. Vincent’s name is symbolic because his name is the same as the famous Vincent Van Gogh, a painter that was insane and ended up shooting himself like Vincent Grey; Grey is symbolic because grey is the color of being in between, it’s the color of neither black nor white, being in the middle of two worlds as Vincent Grey was. We will write a custom essay sample on The Sixth Sense or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Lastly, in â€Å"The Sixth Sense† M. Night Shyamalan uses motif to explain extreme emotional pain that can be damaging to someone. Red is a big significance in the movie because when something is about to go wrong, the color red appears. When something frightening is about to happen somewhere on the screen, the color red appears. Another example of motif is the white hair on the back of Vincent and Cole’s head, because some hair on trauma victims goes white. By Shyamalan having Vincent and Cole sharing this feature, it shows a deep connection between them. Using symbolism and motif people are able to figure out the ending of the movie before it ends. Dr. Malcolm Crowe has been dead for the entire movie, and Cole Sear is able to deal with his problems. Dr. Crowe came to Cole to help him with his problem with being afraid of ghosts, but Cole also helped Dr. Crowe by helping him to move on. When Dr. Crowe spoke to his wife while she was sleeping he was able to figure out that he was dead because he saw his wife’s breath. Works Cited The Sixth Sense. Dir. M. Night Shyamalan. Perf. Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment. 1999. DVD. Buena Vista, 1999. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Sixth Sense. 6 Dec. 2006. 9 Dec. 2006.