Another Apostrophe Review

This information comes from Purdue University: 
The apostrophe has three uses:

1. to form possessives of nouns
2. to show the omission of letters
3. to indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters

Forming Possessives of Nouns

To see if you need to make a possessive, turn the phrase around and make it an "of the..." phrase. For example:

the boy's hat = the hat of the boy
three days' journey = journey of three days

If the noun after "of" is a building, an object, or a piece of furniture, then no apostrophe is needed!

room of the hotel = hotel room
door of the car = car door
leg of the table = table leg

Once you've determined whether you need to make a possessive, follow these rules to create one.

• add 's to the singular form of the word (even if it ends in -s):

  the owner's car
  James's hat (James' hat is also acceptable. For plural, proper nouns that are possessive, use an apostrophe after the 's': "The Eggles' presentation was good." The Eggles are a husband and wife consultant team.)

• add 's to the plural forms that do not end in -s:

  the children's game
  the geese's honking

• add ' to the end of plural nouns that end in -s:

  two cats' toys
  three friends' letters
  the countries' laws

• add 's to the end of compound words:

  my brother-in-law's money

• add 's to the last noun to show joint possession of an object:

  Todd and Anne's apartment

      from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01/
  

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Extra credit opportunity:  Find apostrophes used correctly in published text -- newspapers, magazines, etc. circle the words, and bring me the original or a copy. 

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See also a crib sheet for apostrophe usage  at http://www.istad.org/apostrophes/cribsheet.html
And here's another helpful review -- with funny pictures: http://www.squidoo.com/apostrophe
And some apostrophe errors: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061002/NEWS/610020321/-1/NEWS0206 
 and  Help with Apostrophes

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 Exception to the Rule (Compound Nouns)  from http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/apostrophes_show_possession.htm
Here is another quirk. Some compound nouns (e.g., sister-in-law) do not form their plurals by adding s to the end.  The s is appended to the principal word (i.e., the plural is sisters-in-law). With a noun like this, the possessive form is created by adding 's to the end, regardless of whether it is singular or plural.
 

Singular	Plural
sister-in-law's pond colonel-in-chief's arrival maid of honour's bouquet	sisters-in-law's husbands colonels-in-chief's meeting maids of honour's dresses

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Cool video about apostrophe use:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE0IBPtbY2o

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Find this at http://www.angryflower.com/aposter.html

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Make up for the September Book-of-the-Month Club is available on Thursday, September 29.  Come to Ms. Dorsey's room for Cave Time.  Bring your book and notes.    Because this is a test, you may not do it at home.

When you come to do it, you will go to Friday, September 23, 2011 on this blog.

Self-Starter:  Pick up your composition books.  Pick up the tape-in from the back table. Follow the directions on the tape-in.  Complete this editing exercise based on a sentence from the novel Jack's Run*:  How'd They Do It - Capitalization, Etc.doc

How'd They Do It Caps Spanish.doc  (This may not be a very correct translation, but should give some idea of what our assignment is saying.)

Extra Credit Opportunity: (available all year)

Find errors (capitalization, punctuation, spelling, etc.) in published material (books, magazines, newspapers, copyrighted Internet text) and show me the errors.

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2.  Reading The Outsiders (and listening to the audio book) --
A1 from page 57  --(disk 45, track 1, 19:16) to page 80 (page 45, track 2, 30:48)
A2 from age  49 (disk 45, track 1, 7:19) to page 75 (page 45, track 2, 22:21)
A3  from page 51  (disk 45, track 1, 10:14) to page 75  (page 45, track 2, 22:24)
A4 from  page 58   (disk 45, track 1, 21:15) to page 82  (page 45, track 2, 34:34)

List episodes/events in your composition book.  

Extra Credit Poem Memorization

 

We did play a bit of Sparkle today to practice commonly confused and other often-missed spelling words. 

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*Here is a description of the novel Jack's Run by Roland Smith

From Booklist  -- Gr. 5-8. In Zack's Lie (2001), after Jack's dad's arrest for drug trafficking, the family entered the Witness Security Program to hide from the dangerous drug cartel that will be exposed in court. As the story picks up in this action-packed sequel, Jack arrives in Los Angeles to stay with his college-age sister, Joanne, only to find that she has foolishly blown their cover. Kidnapped and flown to Argentina, Jack and Joanne show their mettle in a series of violent confrontations and other frightening situations. Filling in readers on the background from the previous book takes a bit of time, but once the pace of the story picks up, it never flags; both the heroes and the villains seem larger than life. Sometimes the story strains credibility but may be just the thing for readers who crave plot-driven fiction full of action and danger. Carolyn Phelan  Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Reminder:  Don't forget to study  your commonly confused words and to watch for them  -- and spell them correctly -- in your writing! 

Book-of-the-Month:  Find another novel, but in a different genre, and read it by October 25.   For example, if you read a fantasy book in September, you could read an adventure or historical fiction or other genre this month

To find our lists of recommended books and of books you may not use, go to
http://cavemanenglish.pbworks.com/Recommended-Books

Books you may NOT use for the Book-of-the-Month assignments

Quiz on Lie and Lay for Extra Credit

Go to this site, and print your quiz:
http://www.english-zone.com/verbs/lie-lay1.html

Grammar Practice with Gorillas?

To practice recognizing parts of speech, go to this site. Do a quiz, and print your results.
http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html

January 26/27, 2009

Self-starter: Activity with Question-Answer Relationships
Compare video and book. (chapters 1 and 2) -- Create a chart in your composition book.
Learning about sentence composition: Subjects, Verbs, and Direct Objects.

Places on the web to learn about sentence composition:
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/sentencetext.htm
http://www.leasttern.com/Grammar/humbugsubpred.html

If time: chapter 3 of Words By Heart


Next time we'll start working on using the verbs lie and lay.

You could go to this site for information about using the verbs lie and lay:
http://www.chompchomp.com/rules/irregularrules02.htm

Go here for a quiz on lie and lay: Take and print the quiz for extra credit.
http://www.english-zone.com/verbs/lie-lay1.html