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    Active vs. Passive Voice In-Class Student Final

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    Froy Joe Laroga Barrera II
    This document provides guidance on identifying and writing in the active and passive voice through a series of activities: 1. The first activity asks students to identify the verb, subject, and object in sentences to determine if they are written in the active or passive voice. 2. The second activity rewrites passive voice sentences in the active voice to make them more concise. 3. Later activities have students write about a science lecture, review examples in both voices, and consider which is most appropriate for different situations. The goal is to help students understand and purposefully use active and passive voice structures in their writing.

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    Active vs. Passive Voice In-Class Student Final

    Uploaded by

    Froy Joe Laroga Barrera II
    87 views4 pages
    This document provides guidance on identifying and writing in the active and passive voice through a series of activities: 1. The first activity asks students to identify the verb, subject, and object in sentences to determine if they are written in the active or passive voice. 2. The second activity rewrites passive voice sentences in the active voice to make them more concise. 3. Later activities have students write about a science lecture, review examples in both voices, and consider which is most appropriate for different situations. The goal is to help students understand and purposefully use active and passive voice structures in their writing.

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    This document provides guidance on identifying and writing in the active and passive voice through a series of activities: 1. The first activity asks students to identify the verb, subject, and object in sentences to determine if they are written in the active or passive voice. 2. The second activity rewrites passive voice sentences in the active voice to make them more concise. 3. Later activities have students write about a science lecture, review examples in both voices, and consider which is most appropriate for different situations. The goal is to help students understand and purposefully use active and passive voice structures in their writing.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    87 views4 pages

    Active vs. Passive Voice In-Class Student Final

    Uploaded by

    Froy Joe Laroga Barrera II
    This document provides guidance on identifying and writing in the active and passive voice through a series of activities: 1. The first activity asks students to identify the verb, subject, and object in sentences to determine if they are written in the active or passive voice. 2. The second activity rewrites passive voice sentences in the active voice to make them more concise. 3. Later activities have students write about a science lecture, review examples in both voices, and consider which is most appropriate for different situations. The goal is to help students understand and purposefully use active and passive voice structures in their writing.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    Unit 2 In-Class Activities: Active and Passive Voice

    Before you can purposefully structure your writing in the active (or passive) voice,
    you must be able to understand which elements of each sentence comprise the subject and
    object. Once you are able to do this, you will be able to re-order your sentences to write in
    the style that is most appropriate for the situation.

    Recall from the pre-class activity that in the active voice, the subject of the sentence
    performs the action on the object, whereas in the passive voice, the subject of the sentence
    is acted upon (it effectively does nothing itself).

    A handy hint: let the verb point the way

    To know what the action in the sentence is, just focus on how the verb (the doing
    word) explains the content in the sentence. For example, consider the following sentence.

    “Pests destroy crops.”

    1: Look for the verb first


    2: Find the subject and object by considering whether the action in the verb is being
    actively or passively performed.

    “Pests destroy crops.”

    In the above example, the action of the verb (from ‘to destroy’) is being actively
    performed (these pests are doing the destroying in this sentence). This is therefore an active
    voice sentence.

    For it to be passive, the action of the verb would have to be performed on the subject
    (the pests would not directly be doing the destroying). For example: “My crops were
    destroyed by pests.”

    Activity 1 (work alone or together, 10 minutes)

    For each of the five sentences below, identify the verb before also identifying the
    subject and object. Then use this information to decide whether the sentence is written in
    the active or passive voice. You can work alone or with a partner in this activity.

    1: Over 60 million years ago, a very large meteorite crashed into Earth.
    2: The exact location of the impact is still debated by some scientists.
    3: However, most experts think the crash site is in Mexico.
    4: The extinction of the dinosaurs is attributed by many palaeontologists to the impact.
    5: Dinosaurs would have been affected by sudden changes in temperature, and
    meteorologists recently showed that the earth’s climate changed considerably at this time.

    1
    Activity 2 (work alone or together, 15 minutes)

    Below are five more sentences, but this time they are all written in the passive voice.
    Re-write them in the active voice and try to reduce the length of the sentences by at least a
    few words in each case (one benefit of using the active voice).

    1: The mice were kept in controlled conditions by the experimenters before they were
    removed from their cages and placed on an exercise wheel.
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    2: Each mouse was weighed by the same experimenters before and after it was placed on
    the exercise wheel.
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    3: After 12 weeks had passed, each mouse was randomly placed in one of two treatment
    groups; in all cases, a die was rolled by an experimenter for each mouse and if it landed on
    an even number the mouse was placed in the group that received a pill.
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    4: If the die landed on an odd number, the mouse was placed in the treatment group that
    received a placebo, which was designed by the research team to look like the pill.
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    5: Following another 12 weeks in their different treatment groups, each mouse was
    weighed again by the experimenters and average weight gain (g) was calculated by using
    a calculator.
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    * Note: There will be a brief class regroup at this stage to discuss the answers
    to Activities 1 and 2 *

    Activity 3 (work alone, 5 minutes)

    Sentences written in the active voice generally grab attention more effectively than
    those written in the passive voice. When people first write essays, however, they typically
    produce a rough draft that features all their ideas in some form of ordered chaos, rather

    2
    than worrying too much about their grammar. They then edit their work to make sure the
    sentences, paragraphs and transitions (remember Unit 1) fit together to make a coherent
    argument.

    Now it is time to begin thinking about editing from the perspective of writing in the
    style of voice that best suits the situation. To highlight the importance of this, try to write
    5-6 sentences about the best science lecture you ever attended. You only have a few
    minutes to do this, so just write down your sentences without thinking too much about the
    grammar.

    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    Activity 4 (work together, 5 minutes)

    Choose a partner (or work in groups of 3 to make sure nobody is on their own) and
    swap your worksheets. Now work through each sentence and highlight whether it is written
    in the active or passive voice. When you are finished, hand it back to the author and discuss
    with him/her whether you both agree on the decisions you have made.

    Activity 5 (work alone, 10 minutes)

    Once you have agreed which style of voice you have written each sentence in, try
    to re-write them in the opposite style. So, for example, if you have written your first
    sentence in the passive voice, re-write it in the active voice to practice using both styles
    (Note: This is just to make you more comfortable in using both).
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    3
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________
    ________________________________________________________________________

    Activity 6 (optional, work alone)

    By now, you should have one active and one passive version of each sentence.
    Spend some time looking at each pair and decide which style is most appropriate. This little
    exercise should hopefully show you the importance of re-reading and editing your
    sentences from this perspective to make sure they each have maximum impact.

    For more help with the active and passive voice

    If you are still confused about the differences between the active and passive voice,
    you are encouraged to view the helpful guide on this subject published by the Purdue
    Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/).

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