ADJECTIVE STRINGSMr. Weber

English 9

WHAT IS AN ADJECTIVE? Describing words

They help modify nouns by providing context

“He was holding a bouquet of bright orange tulips…” (John Green, The Fault in Our Stars)

“…a single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been the end of a dock.“ (F. Scott Fitzergerald, The Great Gatsby)

“The basketball game yesterday was disappointing.” (Mr. Weber)

OVERUSE OF ADJECTIVES Adjectives are a great tool when writing, but we need to be careful of when

we use it

When we stack up adjectives, we are creating an adjective pileup

While adjective pileups or strings may be effective, they are generally “clunky” and “clogs up the flow of our sentences” (Anderson 132)

My friend’s new, yellow, shiny, big Mustang drove by me. (Mr. Weber)

The difficult, confusing, nonsensical math homework irritates me so much! (Mr. Weber)

ADJECTIVE STRINGS (PILEUPS) The tired, irritated, busy student stumbled into class.

Example of an ADJECTIVE STRING or ADJECTIVE PILE UP

The tired, irritated, busy student stumbled into class. (Mr. Weber)

The busy student, tired and irritated, stumbled into class.

Adjective Pile Up

The bright, hot, unrelenting sun came up, as it had every day since the end of may.

(Jim Murphy, an American Plague)

The bright, hot unrelenting sun came up.

Adjective Pile Up

The bright sun came up, as it had every day since the end of May, hot and

unrelenting. (Jim Murphy, An American Plague).

The BRIGHT sun came up, as it had every day since the end of May, HOT and UNRELENTING.

QUESTIONS?

CREATING A HUMAN SENTENCE

ADJECTIVE BUCKET ACTIVITY Out of the three adjectives your group picked out of the adjective bucket,

create 2 different sentences using the adjectives

Make sure your sentences DO NOT contain adjective pileups

The sentences can be silly, but make sure they are appropriate!!

Weird, amazing, ambitious

The weird, amazing, ambitious student is going to graduate next month.

The ambitious student, weird but amazing, is going to graduate next month.