Using Adjectives In Context Worksheets
Related ELA Standard: L.4.1.D
The goal of this section is to help students truly understand how to harness the power and energy of adjectives. When you diagnose a sentence, you will learn how to find the exact spot that adjective should be located for the maximum impact on the reader and the audience as a whole. Students often have a mindset that the choice of adjectives is more important effective and where it is placed within the context. This topic will help students see that both hold equal importance and when used in tandem with one another can be powerful tools to get your message across. Students will use these worksheets and lessons to learn the best placement for adjectives within the context of thoughts that are presented.
Using Adjectives In Context Worksheets:
Finish Up - Complete each sentence with an adjective from the word bank.
Highlight It - Write a sentence that uses a term to describes each person, based on the context of what they're doing in the picture.
Laughs and Sours - Choose the sentence that uses an term that only makes sense in the context of the picture. Write the letter that goes with that sentence on the line.
Finisher - Use a word that would properly shore up each of the complete thoughts.
One of Two - Which of the terms would sound the best?
Polar Bear - Complete all the sentences using proper grammar and context.
The Leftovers - You will write your own sentences from scratch with all the left over words.
Noun Pairs - Pair the part adjectives with a noun pair based on the image that you are given.
Make Sense? - Take your time and write a sentence that would best reflect all of these choices.
Bank On It - Which is the best term to use within the context of each of the sentences?
Makes Sense? - Which of the choices makes the most sense to use?
Match It - Look at each picture. Read each set of sentences. All the
sentences are grammatically correct, but only one sentence in each pair uses an adjective that makes sense in the context of the picture that goes with it. Circle the letter of the sentence that uses an adjective that matches the picture
Descriptors - Which of the choices would be the most impactful to the sentence?
Sound Good? - Why not try to make the sentence sound the best.
How to Properly Place an Adjective in a Sentence
When we first learn about adjectives, we learn that their main purpose is to help use describe something. Adjectives can do so much more than that when they properly placed strategically within a sentence or paragraph. They can make your audience want to jump up and take action based on your thoughts. This comes from the proper combination of the adjectives that you choose and where you place them. The beauty of the English language is that there is no limit on the number of adjectives that can be found within a sentence.
The general structure of a sentence tends to favor nouns appear towards the front of a sentence and the adjectives trailing them. There are many different instances where the placement of those adjectives is arbitrary. This is where reading the sentence aloud and determining which sounds better is an important habit to get into. We do find that when working with single uses of adjectives the general system is of noun and then adjectives will fit best for the most part. This all gets thrown out the window when we encounter multiple adjectives in a sentence.
While we initially said that there is no limit to number of adjectives that you can use, they are most effective when limited to two or three. When you advance to using four or more, it will often overwhelm the reader and lose your intended purpose. If your overall goal for writing a sentence is to communicate effectively, writing adjective heavy sentence can quickly defeat your purpose.
When we use multiple adjectives in our writing there is a general scheme or flow at to how we would suggest you place them. The first adjective should generally be placed closest to the noun. It serves as the determiner that introduces the noun and provides a subtle bit of information about it. They are most commonly used to display or declare possession. Articles (a, an, the) can often serve this purpose within the sentence. The second noun is often used to provide an opinion or general observation about the noun. It will often be used to give the reader into a quality that the noun may possess. The third adjective is often a physical description which can elucidate the quality of size or height.
The best way to see if your arrangement works, is to read adjective laden sentences aloud to yourself. We would highly suggest trying multiple context placements when you are using multiple descriptor terms. The proper arrangement of these adjectives can help you maintain a consistent and effective message for your intended audience.