In your composition book, do the following:
Title: What do you notice?
What do you notice about these sentences? Copy the four sentences (with their authors), and then write about three things you notice about them. What you notice could be about individual sentences or about all of them.
1. Harold's eyes were glued to the floor. He couldn't look.
2. Harold is in the principal's office.
--Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Potty People (2006)
3. Spelda tousled her son’s thick, black hair. -- Paul Stewart and Chris Riddle, The Edge Chronicles: Beyond the Deep Woods (1999)
-- Chris Rylander, The Fourth Stall
And notice this --
Students need to know this about apostrophes:
Apostrophes show possession or contraction.
• An apostrophe s added to a singular noun shows possession.
• An apostrophe after the s in a plural word shows possession.
• Apostrophes also show where letters were removed.
• Words shortened with apostrophes are called contractions.
Misunderstandings you may need to get straight in your head:
• Not just any word that ends with an s needs an apostrophe
• Relying on chance rather than meaning with the apostrophe
• Using apostrophes to show pronoun possession -- Don't! For example, in "its" and "yours."
The dog gnawed on its bone.
That jacket must be yours.
Note: It's a matter of style whether you write 1800's or 1800s.
