Adjectives

Dear students,

I'm a little late with this post. Sorry about it. We've finished learning adjectives a week ago. I hope you understood everything we were talking about, but I would like you to review some grammar to feel more comfortable about adjectives and adverbs. 

Irena

       Well, let's start. First I would like you to refresh the grammar. Do you remember the definition of the Adjective? OK, here it is: 

       Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. You can also say they describe or modify nouns. They usually answer the question: what kind? how many? whose? which?

       Adjectives modifies a noun or pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words. An Adjective usually precedes (comes before) the noun or the pronoun which it modifies.

Examples:

It's a nice day today.
Do you like Italian food?
A small boy played with a huge dog.
The tall professor teaches literature.
Do you see that man? He's the richest man in the room.

The interesting fact is in English articles a, an, and the are Adjectives. 

You can watch this video about adjectives. Watch and listen to make sure you understand it.

Adjectives can be: 

Descriptive
Possessive
Distributive 
Quantitative
Demonstrative
Interrogative



     

Descriptive Adjectives

We are going to start with the simplest ones - Descriptive Adjectives. They are usually used to to describe - talk about colors, sizes, conditions, shapes - all kind of details about appearance.

Example:

His car is in perfect condition.

We are using new pens.

Intercontinental airfare is expensive.

Look at the red dress!

It's a long story.

Possessive Adjectives

Words my, his, her, your our, their and its are also Adjectives. We call them Possessive Adjectives. They are possessive forms of personal pronouns that are often used with nouns in the same way that Adjectives are used to modify nouns.  

       

Example: 

Marc forgot his book.

       The possessive form of the pronoun he, which is his, is used as an Adjective modifying the noun book. It also shows the book belongs to Marc. Therefore, it is called a Possessive Adjective. 

Examples: 

These are her gloves. (modifies gloves)
Did you bring your violin? (modifies violin) 
I bought their home. (modifies home) 
The dog lost its collar. (modifies collar)  

A Possessive Adjective is an Adjective that shows ownership. It comes before a noun in the sentence and lets us know to whom the noun belongs.

Example:

his dog
my computer
our classroom

If a group of words that has a subject and verb, and acts as an Adjective, it is called an Adjective Clause. The Adjective clause goes after the noun it describes.

Example:

My sister, who is much older than I am, is an engineer. 

      We can ask a question: What kind of sister? 
And answer: The sister who is older than me. 

So, you can see that this clause describes my sister.

If an Adjective Clause doesn't have subject and verb, it becomes an Adjective Phrase. 

Example:

My down to earth friend is a doctor.

We can ask a question: What kind of friend? 

And answer: My down to earth friend. 

So, you can see that this clause describes my friend.

Distributive Adjectives

Distributive Adjectives are normally used with singular nouns. They include "each", "every", "either", "neither", "any" and "both". They are used to refer to members of a group as individuals. They are used to refer to each and every person or thing separately.

Example: 

Every student in our class can read.

Both of them speak foreign languages.

Do you have any pets?

I could neither laugh or cry.

Quantitative Adjectives

Quantitative Adjectives are the adjectives that describe the measurement, count or amount of anything. However, the measurement is not in exact numbers. They show the quantity of things or lpeople. The words "some", "few", "little", "most", "all", "no", "enough", "whole", "none" are quantitative adjectives.


Example:

She ate the whole apple.
You have no sense.
There is enough water in the canal.
He spent all his money.
I ate some rice.
He has a little knowledge.

He lost all his wealth.

Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative Adjectives "this", "these", "that" and "those" are used as adjectives to modify nouns or noun phrases, as in the following sentences:


Example:

When the librarian tripped over that cord, she dropped a pile of books.

In this sentence, the demonstrative adjective "that" modifies the noun "cord" and the noun phrase "that cord" is the object of the preposition "over". You can a question: Over what cord? 

Example:      

This apartment needs to be painted.

In this sentence the word "this" modifies the word "apartment" and the noun phrase "this apartment" is the subject of the sentence.



Example:

Even though my friend preferred those plates, I bought these.

In this clause the word "those" modifies the word "plates" and the noun phrase "those plates" is the object of the verb "preferred". 




Interrogative Adjectives

An Interrogative Adjective ("which" or "what") is like an interrogative pronoun, except that it modifies a noun or noun phrase rather than standing on its own (see also demonstrative adjectives and possessive adjectives):

Which plants should be watered twice a week?

Like other adjectives, "which" can be used to modify a noun or a noun phrase. In this example, "which" modifies "plants" and the noun phrase "which plants" is the subject of the compound verb "should be watered":

What book are you reading?

In this sentence, "what" modifies "book" and the noun phrase "what book" is the direct object of the compound verb "are reading."

Indefinite Adjectives

An indefinite adjective is similar to an indefinite pronoun, except that it modifies a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase, as in the following sentences:

Many people believe that corporations are under-taxed.

The indefinite adjective "many" modifies the noun "people" and the noun phrase "many people" is the subject of the sentence.

I will send you any mail that arrives after you have moved to Kent.

The indefinite adjective "any" modifies the noun "mail" and the noun phrase "any mail" is the direct object of the compound verb "will send."

They found a few goldfish floating belly up in the swan pound.

In this example the indefinite adjective modifies the noun "goldfish" and the noun phrase is the direct object of the verb "found":

The title of Kelly's favorite game is "All dogs go to heaven."

Here the indefinite pronoun "all" modifies "dogs" and the full title is a subject complement.


Here is another video about adjectives. Watch it. You'll find some more interesting things there.

And one more...

Native Americans

Dear students,

Yesterday we started reading an article about Native Americans. I would like you to get more information about this subject, so I'm posting something else here. Read, watch, enjoy!

Irena

Writing assignment: 

     You read the post about Native Americans. Think about this subject and write 2 or 3 paragraphs about what you think. Don't be afraid to express yourselves. Write your opinion in a Post a Comment section under the post. 

     I'm giving you some questions to make your writing easier. You don't have to answer them, but you can use them as some ideas for your writing. 

     Think about Native Americans. Who are they? Where did they come from and why? Why did they settle here? How was their life from the beginning and later? How did they start? Was it easy for them? Think about their lives before and after the Europeans came to North America. How do you think the Europeans changed the lives of Native American? Is history of Native Americans important to us?

Irena

I'd like to start with the following. This is a Native American Meditation Music video. There is nothing to watch here, just listen, so you can listen to it and read the post.

Who are Native Americans? 

In the United States, Native Americans are considered to be people whose pre-Columbian ancestors were indigenous (local or native) to the lands within the nation's modern boundaries. These peoples were composed of numerous distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups, and many of these groups survive intact today as sovereign nations.




First, I'd like to give you some general facts:

• American Indians are also called Native Americans or Indians.


• Indians lived in the Americas (North and South) long before people from Europe arrived.


• Scientists believe they may have traveled from Asia and Europe to the Americas by crossing the Bering Strait - the small piece of land that connected 2 continents - Asia and America.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
  
  
  
    
• The name Indian was given by Christopher Columbus who thought he had reached East India.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
  
  
  
                                                                   


• Most Indians lived in tribes. A tribe is a group of people who share the same ancestors, customs, beliefs, and leaders.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
• Some tribes built cities, and nations; others remained independent.
• Tribes lived by gathering food, growing food, fishing, or hunting.

    
• There were several types of Indian homes: tipis or teepees, wigwams or wickiups, and cliff dwellings or caves.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
  
        

• Millions of Indians were killed by European and African diseases and wars with American settlers and other countries.


• The disease that killed the most Indians was smallpox.


• The arrival of Europeans in the Americas brought about the end of most Indian populations and cultures.


• Here is a list of some American Indian tribes:

1. Cherokee
2. Navajo
3. Sioux
4. Pueblo
5. Apache
6. Blackfoot
7. Crow
8. Huron
9. Hopi

and more.

If you need more information about the tribes and languages they speak, here is a link - CLICK HERE 

Watch the video about Squanto, Native American boy.

Here are some civics facts:

1. November is National American Indian Heritage Month.

2. States with the largest American Indian populations are: California, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico.

3. An Indian reservation is land that is managed by a Native American tribe. It is overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Laws on reservations can be different than the laws in the surrounding areas.

4. There are over 300 Indian reservations in the United States.

5. A little less than half of all American Indians live on reservations.

        So, basically, many thousands of years before Christopher Columbus’ ships landed in the Bahamas, a different group of people discovered America: the nomadic ancestors of modern Native Americans who hiked over a “land bridge” from Asia to what is now Alaska more than 12,000 years ago. 

        In fact, by the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million people were already living in the Americas. Of these, some 10 million lived in the area that would become the United States. 

       At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears. 

       If you want to get additional information about Native Americans, here is a video about them before Columbus.

Native American Food

What do Native American eat? The three mail kinds of Native American food are corn, squash, and beans. Other foods that have been used widely in Native American culture include greens, deer meat, berries, pumpkin, squash, and wild rice.

Native Americans were resourceful and very good at using what was available to them. Food was no exception. Wherever a tribe was located, they learned what plants would grow there and how to hunt the animals in the area.

Many tribes survived mostly hunting and fishing. In the Arctic and extreme northern parts of North America, most tribes relied entirely on hunting and fishing. The reason for this was simple - nothing would grow there! Other tribes hunted mostly big game, like buffalo or caribou. 

Those tribes moved frequently in order to follow the herds. Almost all tribes hunted at least part of their food. Most tribes hunted deer and rabbits, and caught fish in rivers and lakes. Native Americans felt very strongly that they should not waste food, so they were careful to eat all of an animal that they killed.

Agriculture or farming, was very common among native tribes. Farming was most common among settled tribes who did not move around very often. It was most advanced in the Southern United States, where the warm climate created a long growing season. The tribes of the Southeast developed special methods for growing their food. They used irrigation, crop rotation and planted windbreaks to ensure their crops.

The main crops that were grown by Native Americans were corn, beans, and squash. Corn, in particular, was a very important part of the diet of Native Americans. It was referred to as maize by many Native Americans. Most Americans of today are used to corn in shades of yellow. But Native Americans grew a wide variety of corn in many different colors. They grew red, green, blue, and even black corn! Over the years, corn has been bred to be much sweeter than it was when Native Americans grew it.

Unfortunately, it’s far less healthy now than it was then. In addition to food crops, many native tribes also grew medicinal plants, cotton, and tobacco. Believe it or not, it is estimated that as much as 3/4 of the world’s foods today are food that were originally cultivated by Native Americans!

Native Americans also added to their diets by gathering foods. This meant that they gathered plants that grew wild, such as berries, nuts, and herbs. Over time, they learned which herbs could be used to cure sickness or help heal an injury.

Native American meals were prepared simply. Their food was usually eaten fresh, with little seasoning. Most food was cooked over an open fire. Corn was prepared and eaten in many different ways. They ate corn-on-the-cob, hominy, popcorn, and even baked cornbread. Many of these foods are still eaten in the areas where Native Americans passed along their foods and cultures.

Here is a video about the Wampanoag tribe.

Here is a link about Native American culture. If you'd like to read about it, please, click here - Native American Culture Link

12 Facts I Did Not Know About Native Americans

Here is a video about Native American homes. Watch it.

If you want to know these 12 things, HERE IS A LINK for you. Click on it and read, please.

You can look at oldest Native American pictures in this video.

Helen Keller

Dear students,

We have just finished reading the story of Helen Keller. Now I would like to give you some information about her. 

Enjoy,
Irena

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. 

Synopsis

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. In 1882, she was stricken by an illness that left her blind and deaf. Beginning in 1887, Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her make tremendous progress with her ability to communicate, and Keller went on to college, graduating in 1904. In 1920, Keller helped found the ACLU. During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments.

Early Life

Helen Keller was the first of two daughters born to Arthur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. She also had two older stepbrothers. Keller's father had proudly served as an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The family was not particularly wealthy and earned income from their cotton plantation. Later, Arthur became the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the North Alabamian.

Keller was born with her senses of sight and hearing, and started speaking when she was just 6 months old. She started walking at the age of one.

Loss of Sight and Hearing

In 1882, however, Keller contracted an illness—called "brain fever" by the family doctor—that produced a high body temperature. The true nature of the illness remains a mystery today, though some experts believe it might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. Within a few days after the fever broke, Keller's mother noticed that her daughter didn't show any reaction when the dinner bell was rung, or when a hand was waved in front of her face. Keller had lost both her sight and hearing. She was just 19 months old.

As Keller grew into childhood, she developed a limited method of communication with her companion, Martha Washington, the young daughter of the family cook. The two had created a type of sign language, and by the time Keller was 7, they had invented more than 60 signs to communicate with each other. But Keller had become very wild and unruly during this time. She would kick and scream when angry, and giggle uncontrollably when happy. She tormented Martha and inflicted raging tantrums on her parents. Many family relatives felt she should be institutionalized.

Educator Anne Sullivan

Looking for answers and inspiration, in 1886, Keller's mother came across a travelogue by Charles Dickens, American Notes. She read of the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and soon dispatched Keller and her father to Baltimore, Maryland to see specialist Dr. J. Julian Chisolm. After examining Keller, Chisolm recommended that she see Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell met with Keller and her parents and suggested that they travel to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts. There, the family met with the school's director, Michael Anagnos. He suggested Helen work with one of the institute's most recent graduates, Anne Sullivan. And so began a 49-year relationship between teacher and pupil.

On March 3, 1887, Sullivan went to Keller's home in Alabama and immediately went to work. She began by teaching six-year-old Helen finger spelling, starting with the word "doll," to help Keller understand the gift of a doll she had brought along. Other words would follow. At first, Keller was curious, then defiant, refusing to cooperate with Sullivan's instruction. When Keller did cooperate, Sullivan could tell that she wasn't making the connection between the objects and the letters spelled out in her hand. Sullivan kept working at it, forcing Helen to go through the regimen.

As Keller's frustration grew, the tantrums increased. Finally, Sullivan demanded that she and Keller be isolated from the rest of the family for a time, so that Keller could concentrate only on Sullivan's instruction. They moved to a cottage on the plantation.

In a dramatic struggle, Sullivan taught Keller the word "water"; she helped her make the connection between the object and the letters by taking Keller out to the water pump, and placing Keller's hand under the spout. While Sullivan moved the lever to flush cool water over Keller's hand, she spelled out the word w-a-t-e-r on Helen's other hand. Keller understood and repeated the word in Sullivan's hand. She then pounded the ground, demanding to know its "letter name." Sullivan followed her, spelling out the word into her hand. Keller moved to other objects with Sullivan in tow. By nightfall, she had learned 30 words.

A Formal Education

In 1890, Keller began speech classes at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston. She would toil for 25 years to learn to speak so that others could understand her. From 1894 to 1896, she attended the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. There, she worked on improving her communication skills and studied regular academic subjects.

Around this time, Keller became determined to attend college. In 1896, she attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, a preparatory school for women. As her story became known to the general public, Keller began to meet famous and influential people. One of them was the writer Mark Twain, who was very impressed with her. They became friends. Twain introduced her to his friend Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive. Rogers was so impressed with Keller's talent, drive, and determination that he agreed to pay for her to attend Radcliffe College. There, she was accompanied by Sullivan, who sat by her side to interpret lectures and texts.

By this time, Keller had mastered several methods of communication, including touch-lip reading, Braille, speech, typing, and finger-spelling. With the help of Sullivan and Sullivan's future husband, John Macy, Keller wrote her first book, The Story of My Life. It covered her transformation from childhood to a 21-year-old college student. Keller graduated, cum laude, from Radcliffe in 1904, at the age of 24.

In 1905, Sullivan married John Macy, an instructor at Harvard University, a social critic and a prominent socialist. After the marriage, Sullivan continued to be Keller's guide and mentor. When Keller went to live with the Macys, they both initially gave Keller their undivided attention. Gradually, however, Anne and John became distant to each other, as Anne's devotion to Keller continued unabated. After several years, they separated, though were never divorced.

Social Activism

After college, Keller set out to learn more about the world and how she could help improve the lives of others. News of her story spread beyond Massachusetts and New England. She became a well-known celebrity and lecturer by sharing her experiences with audiences and working on behalf of others living with disabilities. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Keller tackled social and political issues, including women's suffrage, pacifism, and birth control. She testified before Congress, strongly advocating to improve the welfare of blind people. In 1915, along with renowned city planner George Kessler, she co-founded Helen Keller International to combat the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition. In 1920, she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union.

When the American Federation for the Blind was established in 1921, Keller had an effective national outlet for her efforts. She became a member in 1924 and participated in many campaigns to raise awareness, money, and support for the blind. She also joined other organizations dedicated to helping those less fortunate, including the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund (later called the American Braille Press).

Soon after she graduated from college, Keller became a member of the Socialist Party, most likely due in part to her friendship with John Macy. Between 1909 and 1921, she wrote several articles about socialism and supported Eugene Debs, a Socialist Party presidential candidate. Her series of essays on socialism, entitled "Out of the Dark," described her views on socialism and world affairs.

It was during this time that Keller first experienced public prejudice about her disabilities. For most of her life, the press had been overwhelmingly supportive of her, praising her courage and intelligence. But after she expressed her socialist views, some criticized her by calling attention to her disabilities. One newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle, wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development."

Work and Influence

In 1936, Keller's beloved teacher and devoted companion, Anne Sullivan, died. She had experienced health problems for several years and, in 1932, lost her eyesight completely. A young woman named Polly Thomson, who had begun working as a secretary for Keller and Sullivan in 1914, became Keller's constant companion upon Sullivan's death.

In 1946, Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between 1946 and 1957, she traveled to 35 countries on five continents. In 1955, at age 75, Keller embarked on the longest and most grueling trip of her life: a 40,000-mile, five-month trek across Asia. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of people.

Now you can watch the movie about Helen Keller 

"The story of my life"

She was a very smart woman. 

Read her quotes:

Books she wrote: