Warm-ups

1. Warm-ups Week of 30 Jan 2012

2. Monday, 8th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • Whitman saw Lincoln often in Washington, D.C., and admires him tremendously. • He felt that he represented American democracy in its best and most purest form. • Skills practiced: verb tense compatibility, correction of unclear pronoun reference, correction of double comparison.

3. Tuesday, 8th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • The assassination of president Lincoln effected Whitman deeply. • “O Captain, My Captain” expresses the poet’s personal grief for the man who he had loved and admired. • Skills practiced: capitalization of title before person’s name, correction of commonly misspelled words, correct case of relative pronoun.

4. Wednesday, 8th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • In his poem Whitman compares the United States to a ship. He compares Lincoln to the captain who has steered the ship safely through the storm of war. • As the people cheer the triumph, the captain lays dead. • Skills practiced: combining sentences, use of pronoun to avoid repetition, correction of commonly confused words.

5. Thursday, 8th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • Settlers who thought they found the perfect place often chose the Greek word eureka, meaning “I have found it”, as a place name. • The following states have towns named Eureka, Alaska, California, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Nevada, Utah, Washington. • Skills practiced: verb tense compatibility, use of underlining or italics with foreign word, correct placement of comma with quotation marks, use of colon before a list.

6. Friday, 8th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • English settlers took English place names, Lexington, Cambridge, Leominster, Worcester, Uxbridge to America with them. • New York settlers gave towns dutch names like Yonkers, Rensselaer, and Watervliet. • Skills practiced: correction of commonly confused words, use of dash to set off additional information, capitalization of proper adjective.

7. Monday, 7th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • After the poet and Annabel Lee had fallen in love. Then she died. • The angels envied both she and the poet. • Skills practiced: correction of sentence fragment, correct pronoun case.

8. Tuesday, 7th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • The poet had gave Annabel Lee their love forever. • The speaker is sad after losing his love. • Skills practiced: correct past participle of irregular verb, pronoun agreement with antecedent, use of precise adjective to improve style

9. Wednesday, 7th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • Rhyme is a type of repetition. This is interesting to a listener. • Because of all the repetition “Annabel Lee” has a musical sound. • Skills practiced: use of relative clause to combine sentences, use of comma after introductory phrase.

10. Thursday, 7th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • Shakespeare was born on April 23 1564 in an small town called Stratford-on-Avon. • Shakespeare is very famous today. He was not so well known in his day. • Skills practiced: use of comma after day and year in a date, correct use of indefinite article, use of subordinating conjunction to combine sentences.

11. Friday, 7th Grade • Please come in, sit down quietly, and correct the following sentences: • Scholars think that Shakespeares father was a businessman who also served in the local government. • We know hardly nothing about Shakespeare’s life. • Skills practiced: correct use of apostrophe to show possession, correction of commonly misspelled word, elimination of double negative.