Sir Abdool | English A @Bushlot_Sec.

 There is/are  &  There was/were Rules:  1. "There is" is used with singular nouns (e.g: bread, Sun, James). "There are" is use with plural nouns (e.g: pans, dancers, Stars). 2. "There was" (singular form) & "There were" (plural form), are used as the past tense forms of "is" and "are". When a sentence starts with or includes the word " There ", the auxhilary verb that follows it (i.e: is, are, was, were ) must agree with the main noun in the sentence. See two examples below -  A) There was no bread left in the house. B) There are two packs of biscuits in the cupboard "House" and "Cupboard" are nouns too, but they are not the main nouns; the verbs in each sentence does not connect to those nouns since they are too far away from it. Here are some more examples: There is a cake in the oven. There are many mangoes on the tree. There was one customer in the store. Practice: Se...

So you've made it to a higher level, congratulations. By now you will have done enough poetry to realize that that there are types of poems. Can you remember any of those types? Here's a handy reminder: There is one more type that is missing from here and that's the "Sonnet" type poems. English poets borrowed the sonnet form from the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch . Traditionally, it has fourteen lines of iambic pentameter linked by an intricate rhyme scheme . Iambic pentameter refers to its rhythm ; basically, each line of the poem has ten syllables , and every other syllable is stressed. The words I've put in bold in the paragraph above are important terms to understand in the field of poetry, and we will be covering them later in this lesson. Writing poetry is quite easy,  I can make one that's very... cheesy Rhyming words is little stress Count your syllables to be the best See? You can do that! In the picture above, they mention "Ballads...

So, verbs, remember how there are different types of them?  Can you name any of the types? Think about that... then take a look down below. Now that your memory is refreshed, let's go into the topic for today - Transitive & Intransitive verbs. What are transitive and intransitive verbs? If you took the time to read the information in the picture above, you'll have read something about transitive verbs needing an object in the sentence to "transfer" it's action to; whereas an intransitive verb does not need an object, it does not have to link the "action" that it does to the subject/object of the sentence. Confused? Let's look at some examples, beginning with the TRANSITIVE VERBS 1. The speaker examined the iPhone 13 in the video. This the verb in this sentence (examined) is Transitive, see how it links to the object of the sentence? The object or objects in a sentence with a transitive verb (usually) directly follows the verb. A transitive ve...

  Assonance and Alliteration are two features of language that writers, especially poets, use.  They are meant to engage a reader’s auditory (i.e, listening) skills while also making the writing they are used in sound musical and fun to read. Assonance and Alliteration are mainly different in terms of what letter type is repeated and where.  Since poetry and prose use them heavily, they can be a little hard to distinguish to most people. What is Alliteration? Alliteration is a literary style that deals with the repetition of similar or identical consonant sounds. (All letters of the Alphabet, other than Vowels, are consonants) It makes a line fun to read and usually repeats the consonant sounds in a word, usually in the beginning those words, but may occur at any point. You may be familiar with this famous example of Alliteration from the old tongue-twister "Peter the piper".   E.g #1 - " P eter p iper p icked a p epper; p ut it in a p epper p ot", is the Guyanese ...

  The colon   ( : )   and semicolon   ( ; ) are frequently used incorrectly in place of each other. The two punctuation marks serve very different purposes, and should not be used interchangeably. COLON A colon is used to give emphasis, present dialogue, introduce lists or text, and clarify composition titles. Emphasis — Capitalise  the first word after the colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. (She had one love: Guyana, land of many waters.) Dialogue —Write the speaker's name, followed by a colon and his or her statement. (Reporter: What is the Golden Arrow of Achievement ? Dunn: It is a General Award and Guyana's fourth-highest award, to ‘any citizen of Guyana who has performed an outstanding and specific act of service or achievement of an exceptional nature'. ) Introduce lists, text or tabular material — Capitalise  the first word after the colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete ...

 An Idea like "Implicit meaning" can be hard to understand sometimes. Like any big or confusing word, there are other smaller easier words we can break it down into.  It's like talking about something without mentioning the name of that thing. Check out these examples:  1. Of the 24 hours in a day, there is none I love more than those hours when the sky becomes painted with oranges and pinks - when the air becomes cooler and the crickets start to sing. What time of day do I love the most? If you guessed "Sunset" or "twilight", you're correct. I did not tell you just like that, that I love the sunset - I told you about the colours in the sky and the coolness of the air and the crickets that start making their sounds. With this information you can then understand what time of day I am talking about. 2. As he bit into some crunchy jam and toast as he read the newspaper spread in front of him. Over on the stove, the tea he forgot to pour out was get...

In the last Grade 9 English "A" post, you were asked to write a 2 paragraph descriptive story based on a picture you took or drawing you made. In today's post you can learn to describe a person from different angles of approach.  For example, we can describe a beggar in any of these ways: Illustration of a beggar in 'rags' As seen by an anonymous writer, e.g. The beggar shuffled into the shop almost apologetically, holding out half a coconut shell with sad persistence...  As a first person description, e.g.  I watched the beggar thoughtfully and wondered whether he earned more than I did from his earnest entreaties to elderly tourists...  As seen Through The Eyes of a child (by the Narrator), e.g. The scene always puzzled Mitzie, being young as she was. She watched her father take off the clean clothes he wore at home, and put on some old and dirty rags. “It’s his work”, her mother explained nervously. “He works in a very dirty place, and he doesn't want to sp...

I'm sure you can define the word "describe", but what exactly is descriptive writing?  To refresh your memory, let us go back to a definition of descriptive writing -  In descriptive writing, the author does not just tell the reader what was seen, felt, tested, smelled, or heard. Rather, the author describes something from their own experience and, through careful choice of words and phrasing, makes it seem real. Descriptive writing is vivid, colourful, and detailed. Good descriptive writing creates an impression in the reader's mind of an event, a place, a person, or a thing. The writing will be such that it will set a mood or describe something in such detail that if the reader saw it, they would recognise it. Descriptive Writing Techniques Here are some examples of descriptive writing techniques that you can utilise and effectively apply to your own writing. Choosing your focus: When you first begin writing, it's extremely important to decide what your topic...

By now you should already be aware of what a paragraph is. However, in the likely event that you forgot some of the specifics, here is a refresher of that information: What is a paragraph? A paragraph is a distinct section of writing covering one topic. A paragraph will usually contain more than one sentence. A paragraph starts on a new line. Sometimes, paragraphs are indented or numbered. (Whatever format you use, be consistent).