Exemplifying Prepositional Phrases

After learning four new vocabulary words (catharsis, kudos, risible, estrange), we began our exemplification unit. Exemplification is exactly how it sounds -- a writing style that emphasizes examples. For instance, we brainstormed all the related words and emotions of this general topic: students. Next, we picked "bad decisions" as a theme to clarify a direction to our exemplification. Then, comes the three qualities of exemplification writing: relevancy, range, and specificity. First, relevancy involves selecting the items on the brainstorm that connect with the theme and ditching all the items that do not fit. You can then group the items into usable categories such as social, educational, and emotional for our student examples. Second, range connects to organization of examples. Do you want a chronological order, a least important to most important order, etc. For today, we decided to organize socially then emotionally then educationally. Last, specificity involves taking a vague idea (lunchroom bad decisions) and making these into memorable, specific, image-filled examples (starting a fight over spilled peas). To further instill the exemplification ideas, we read "Be Specific," a short essay detailing the necessity of specific names and information for all objects -- whether it be flower, cheese, or person.

For the creative portion of our show, we reviewed prepositions and prepositional phrases. Remember, a preposition exists in a prepositional phrase. The phrase begins with a prepositional and ends with an object. You can have modifiers to describe the object, but there are no verbs in a prepositional phrases. 

With a partner, you drew four random prepositions and created a story in prepositional phrases. Tomorrow, we will start by turning this story into a visualization via construction paper. Ideally, this will help all of us improve with recognizing prepositional phrases -- whether you are a squirrel in a tree, a girl in a bed of spiders, or a high school student asleep on the bus.

See you tomorrow for more exemplifying and prepositional fun!