FROM GRAMMAR TO WRITING

PART 1 Editing Advice

1. Use was/were with born. was

Dawson born in the South. ^ 2. Don’t use was or were with die.

He was died in 2001.

3. Don’t use a past form after to. swim

Nyad decided to swam from Cuba to Florida. 4. Don’t use was or were to form the simple past. accomplishedShe was accomplish her goal.

5. Use a form of be before an adjective. Remember, some –ed words are adjectives. was

Dawson excited about going to school.^ 6. Don’t use did with an adjective. Use was or were. weren't

Andrée and his men didn’t successful.

7. Form the past question correctly. didn't you Why you didn’t read the article? did write

Why Dawson wrote a book? ^ 8. Use the base form after didn’t.

He didn’t learned to read when he was a child.

9. Don’t forget the d in used to in affirmative statements. d

He use to live in the South. ^ 10. Don’t add the verb be before used to for habitual past.

Nyad is used to be a sportscaster. 11. Use the correct past form. swam

Nyad swimmed from Cuba to Florida.

PART 2 Editing Practice

Some of the shaded words and phrases have mistakes. Find the mistakes and correct them. If the shaded words are correct, write C. C was

I recently read an article about Jackie Robinson. He were the first African American to play on

a major league baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Major league baseball teams use to have only

white players. Blacks were used to have their own teams.

1. 2.

3.

4.

Robinson born in 1919 in the South. His family was very poor. When he was just a baby, his

father leaved the family, and his mother decided to moved the family to California. When he were in

high school and college, he interested in several different sports. After junior college, he went to the

University of California, where he was won awards in baseball, basketball, football, and track. He

didn’t finished college. He taked a job as athletic director of a youth organization. Then he enter the

U.S. Army in 1942. After he left the Army in 1944, he accepted an offer to be the athletic director at a

college in Texas. In 1945, the Kansas City Monarchs, an African American baseball team, sended him an

offer to play professional baseball. In 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers offered him a contract. The manager

of the team knowed that Robinson would face racial discrimination. He didn’t wanted Robinson to fight

back. Some people in the crowds yelled racial insults to him. Even some of his teammates objected to

having an African American on their team. Robinson didn’t surprised. He knew this would happen.

Some other teams threatened not to play against the Dodgers. How the manager of the team reacted?

The manager, Leo Durocher, supported Robinson. He sayed that he would rather keep Robinson than

some of them. In one game, when people yelled racial insults at Robinson, the team captain come over

and putted his arm around Robinson to show his support.

Robinson succeeded in breaking the racial barrier. He become the highest paid player in

Dodgers history. But more importantly, he opened the door for other African American athletes in

professional sports. He retired from baseball in 1957. He was died in 1972.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

34.

35. 36.

WRITING TIP

When writing about someone’s life story, we use simple past forms. We often begin with information about when and where a person was born. Then it is common to provide details of his or her life chronologically; for example, the person’s childhood, schooling, accomplishments, etc., in the simple past. Question forms may be used to bring attention to a particular detail, for example Was George Lawson a success? He definitely was.

PART 3 Write

Read the prompts. Choose one and write a paragraph about it.

1. Write about an ordinary person who did something extraordinary (like George Dawson). It can be someone you read about or someone you know. 2. Write about a time when you failed at something. What did you learn from your failure?

PART 4 Edit

Reread the Summary of Unit 3 and the editing advice. Edit your writing from Part 3.

UNIT 4

Possessives Pronouns

WEDDINGS

Newlyweds Qu Shen and Liu Ge pose for wedding photos at the fire station where he works as a firefighter in Shangluo, Shaanxi Province of China.

A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences. DAVE MEURER