Welcome to



Last Revised June 30, 2021

Welcome to the “Start in Grade” Series

by Dr. Ed Vavra

Click here for the Table of Current Progress

|An important note: This document includes numerous links to the KISS Grammar Site. If you are not |

|connected to the internet, these links will not work for you. |

Why Students Need to Study Sentence Structure over Several Years 2

The Basic Design of the “Start in Grade Series” 4

Why Didn’t I just Complete the “Grade-Level Series”? 5

Two Types of Descriptions of a KISS Sequence 7

Enabling Students to See their Progress 7

Level 1 - The Basics 9

Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 1 10

Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 1 11

Level 2 - Expanding the Basics 13

Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 2 14

Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 2 15

Level 3 - Verbals and Sub Clauses 17

Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 3 18

Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 3 19

Level 4 – Appositives, Postponed Adjectives and More 21

Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 4 22

Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 4 24

Level 5 - Types of Verbals and Noun Absolutes 26

Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 5 27

Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 5 29

Why Students Need to Study Sentence Structure

over Several Years

If you look at a number of grammar textbooks, you will probably see that they identify various constructions. Students do one or two exercises on a construction—and instruction drops that construction and moves on to another. In essence, these books teach students definitions and students never learn how these constructions work together to make sentences. Almost all of these books are variations on previous grammars. In the 1980’s I started with the traditional definitions of Paul Roberts’s Understanding Grammar, but homework was (and still is) taken from real texts—students’ writing and stories, etc. that students read. As I improved KISS, I found grammatical constructions that need to be taught for students to fully understand sentence structure. Most of these are described in this document.

In developing KISS, my objective was to enable students to understand the syntax of sentences—the way in which words work with others to make sensible sentences. When I walked into my fifteen-week college grammar course for future teachers, my objective was to teach students as much as I could. And my approach was extremely different than any that I know of. The first thing I did was to give the students a paper written by a college student. Because of time restraints, I began with prepositional phrases. Having given the students instructional materials, we identified all the prepositional phrases in that paper. The assignment for the next class was to identify such phrases in a different student’s paper. Within those fifteen weeks, we “covered” many of the major constructions that are described in this document. I used the quotation marks because many of the students needed more practice. A few students mastered everything.

Perhaps this is the place to discuss students. Those students who mastered everything had a different attitude to education. First of all, they were there because they wanted to learn and not just to pass the course. Second, they understood that they were going to use in every following week what they were learning in the first week. KISS builds on what students have already learned. The weaker students did not understand that. Instead, they looked at the course as teaching them individual facts, rather than teaching a skill. Third, the students who did well had learned to follow sequential directions. Weaker students often ignored the directions for an exercise.

When I taught a smaller version of KISS as part of my college Freshman writing course, we again started with prepositional phrases. I gave students a list of words that function as prepositions, some examples, and a short text for homework. They were expected to put parentheses around each prepositional phrase in that text. All they had to do is to find a preposition in the homework. “In” is a preposition, so if they found it and asked “In what?” they could easily put parentheses around “in the homework.” One student complained that he spent three hours on the homework, and still did not understand. When I asked him what he did, he said that he spent three hours on the web looking for more information. When I asked the class, three or four students said that they did the same thing. Many college instructors have also complained that students ignore directions. Most of the better students in the class finished the exercise in about ten minutes.

The preceding two paragraphs suggest a major problem that teachers of KISS will have. I address it in the design described below. The design has sixty exercises in each of five levels. Most exercises can be done in ten minutes. Half of the exercises are labeled “optional” in the teachers’ book. In addition, exercises for numerous constructions begin with “mixed” exercises. For example, a complement answers the questions “who, whom, and what?” after a verb. Students are introduced to complements in Level 1 Unit 1, and they will be labeling complements “C” in almost every exercise in Level 1.

Unit Two of Level 1 begins with three mixed exercises on the types of complements—predicate adjectives, predicate nouns, pronouns as predicate nouns, indirect and direct objects, and the “zero” complement. Many students will be able to identify the types of complements after doing just these first three exercises. But these three are followed by nine exercises—two for each type except for “zero” for the no complement.

Similar mixed exercises appear in L3, U1 – “Distinguishing Finite Verbs from Verbals,” and L3, U3 – “Mixed Subordinate Clauses,” and because subordinate clauses are very important L3 U4 – focuses on “Adverbial Subordinate Clauses,” L3 U5 – on “Adjectival Subordinate Clauses,” and “L3 U6 – on “Subordinate Clauses - Nouns.” L4 U5 –has nine exercises for an “Introduction to the Three Types of Verbals,” The first half of Level Five reinforces the types of verbals—U1 has eight exercises on gerunds, U2, eight on gerundives, and U3 has fourteen on infinitives.

I apologize if the preceding explanations tried your patience, but my point is that many students will not even need many of the “suggested” exercises. They are there for the students who almost certainly will need them, and teachers can decide which exercises to use or skip. It would not surprise me if some students in, say, seventh grade can master all of KISS in one year. I don’t think that is a good idea, but it may be true. It is not a good idea because practice makes perfect. I remember watching a football game during which a commentator claimed that a receiver made an almost impossible catch. His partner, however, noted that the quarterback and receiver practiced that play hundreds of times.

The Basic Design of the “Start in Grade Series”

Over the years, I’ve learned that people want to start KISS with students in different grades. There are four one-year books for different grade levels, but most students cannot master how every word connects to the main subject/verb/complement (S/V/C) pattern in one year. This document explains why they can’t.

A table may make things clearer. Note that the green cells include links. You can click and download these books for free.

| | | | | | |

Note: The Level 3 book is complete except for the assessment tests. There are two mid-term tests, but they are difficult to make and probably time-consuming and frustrating for teachers to grade. I’m asking the members of the KISSList for suggestions.

For each level there are the students’ book (L1) and the teachers’ book (AK) with suggestions for teachers and the suggested “Answer Keys” for the exercises.

This series is designed to consist of five levels. When it is finished, students will be able to start any time between grades one and eight, but no matter which grade you start in, start with Level 1. When you finish that, go to the next higher level. Note that each column includes two grades of students. In other words, you will be able to start in grade one or two, or in three or four, etc. When a book is finished, its cell will be green. The yellow cells indicate my priorities. For example, I am currently writing the level three books for grades five or six. When the current yellow books are complete, I’ll start on the series that starts in grades seven or eight. Many of the exercises that will be used are already made.

I have been asked if older students can start with the “G1 or 2” Level One book. The answer is a definite “yes.” The students should just be told the Level One books for older students have not yet been made. The main difference is that the sentences are much simpler.

There are two main reasons for this format. The first is that first and second graders will have problems with the vocabulary and sentence structure of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities; and seventh graders will not appreciate exercises based on Bunny Rabbit’s Diary. Second, Level 4 may be beyond the “zone” of many fifth or sixth graders. Every book in a level will have similar instructional and exercises in the order described below.

There will be one printable book (and a corresponding answer key for teachers) for every cell in the table with an “L” in it. Each book will contain sixty exercises divided into two halves, and in each half fifteen exercises are marked “Skip?” in the teachers’ book. This design gives teachers numerous options. I hope to add two companion books for each level. One will be on for reading and writing; the second for vocabulary and punctuation.. These will contain most of the stories, etc. from which sentences were used for exercises plus suggestions for writing assignments.

Why Didn’t I just Complete the “Grade-Level Series”?

For six main reasons, the “Start” series” will be replacing the original “Grade-Level.” First, it’s been about twenty years since the “Grade-Level Series” was organized. That series was planned to have ten sequences for starting in every grade from second to eleventh. That meant that when something was changed in the sequence, it had to be changed in ten sequences. The new format reduces that to six. I was planning on using the writing of real students for exercises starting in grade three. In the new series, students’ writing from two grades will be used in each level after grade two.

Second, in making the “Grade-Level” sequence, I wasn’t thinking about the number of exercises students would be doing in a year; I was only thinking of including enough exercises so that no student would be left behind. In the “Grade-Level” series, no exercises are marked “Skip?” in the teachers’ “Analysis Key” books. The “Grade-Level” series also includes materials that I intend to put in the new companion books.

Third, in the “Grade-Level” series, students do 26 exercises before they learn about complements. (A “complement” is whatever answers the question “Who, whom, or what?” after a subject and verb.) In the new series they learn how to identify complements in the very first exercise.

Fourth, in the “Grade-Level” series, exercises were made in html, and some are very short, and others are more than a page long. In the new series, exercises fit on one MS Word page.

Fifth, when I made a one-year sequence “For Upper Primary and Lower Middle School,” I made a book for reading and writing. I plan to make similar books for every book for every level in this “Start in Grade” sequence.

|KISS Reader for Writing |Suggestions for Teachers |

You may be surprised by the number of versions (sometime very different) of fairy tales. That book includes multiple versions of three fairy tales. I used “The Three Little Pigs to show students how to make two different outlines and examples of papers based on them. Then they have five versions of “The Golden Touch” and seven of “Little Red Riding Hood,” to write papers similar to my models. In general, for students in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades the best writing assignments are to write their own versions of a fairy tale, or short story. Starting in sixth or seventh grades, I’ll probably be suggesting assignments similar to those that I used in my college literature course.

Sixth, in the “Grade-Level” series almost all the exercises in the first two levels consist of very simple sentences—one subject / verb / complement pattern. In this series, even the first exercises have many sentences that have more than one. This gives students more S/V/C patterns on a one-page exercise. It also gives students examples of clauses before they formally study them, so this format should make the identifying of clauses much easier when students get to them. Every Level One book in this series starts with a version of the instructions on the next page.

[pic]

The first thing you are going to learn is how to identify subject / verb / complement patterns. They are the most important parts of every sentence. In the exercises, some sentences have only one pattern, but some sentences have more than one. Each pattern is the basic part of either a main or a subordinate clause. To understand clauses, you will need to be able to identify S/V/C patterns. To help you do that, Louie marks the clauses for you. He puts a vertical line after each main clause:

“I saw you catch the wee lamb, | but you shall not catch me.” |

This means that there has to be a pattern before every vertical line. Your job will be to mark the S/V/C patterns. Your answer should look like this:

“I saw you (C) catch the wee lamb, | but you shall not catch me (C).” |

Notice that Louie put “catch” in smaller, bold letters. That means that you are not expected to explain it. For now, you can ignore such words.

Louie also shows subordinate clauses by putting them in brackets. For example:

He says [it is fun to see Father mow]. |

Your answer should look like this:

He says [it is fun (C) to see Father mow]. |

Here again you can ignore “to see Father mow.”

Sometimes a subordinate clause separates the subject and verb in another clause:

Sally, [who ran too fast,] tripped and hurt her knee. |

Your answer should be:

Sally, [who ran too fast,] tripped and hurt her knee (C). |

In this sentence there are also two verbs for the subject “Sally.” When there is more than one subject, verb, or complement, they are called “compounds.” You’ll learn more about them later. But you should label all the words in compounds.

The other thing to note is that subordinate clauses can be inside another subordinate clause:

Every day the queen would say, [“I wish [we had a little daughter].”] |

Your answer should be:

Every day the queen would say, [“I wish [we had a little daughter (C)].”] |

This may look difficult, but Louie told me that you can do it. And when you get used to finding complements by asking “Who, Whom, or What?” after a verb, you’ll probably see that in the last example the first subordinate clause is the complement of “say,” and that the “we” clause is the complement of “wish.” You’ll be way ahead in getting to your objective. Listen to Louie.

[pic]

Two Types of Descriptions of a KISS Sequence

Again, the most important point here is that students at any grade level have to start with Level 1. I recently discovered that many frustrated users of KISS did things like starting KISS in sixth grade with Level 3. As this introduction will show you, Level 3 builds on everything taught in Levels 1 and 2. No wonder they were confused.

The following describes each of the units in each level. These descriptions are of two types. The first focuses on the why of the unit. These are followed by descriptions of each half of that unit that explain the exercises in that unit. In most of the units, you’ll see “Just for Fun” exercises. They are based on riddles, jokes, or funny passages. They reinforce what the students have learned, and I’ve been told that many students enjoy them. What? Enjoying an exercise on grammar?

Enabling Students to See their Progress

The general descriptions do not reflect another major difference of KISS. The majority of KISS exercises are made by taking sentences from real texts. For example, in an exercise on compounds, only sentences that contain compounds are taken from a story. This is necessary to help students learn how to identify specific constructions. But the KISS objective is to enable students to analyze almost every word in their own writing.

To help students to see how much they can explain, almost every unit has at least one “Passage for Analysis” exercise. In Level One, these exercises are called “How Much I Can Explain.” For example, in the book for students in grades one or two, an exercise in Unit One is from “The Opening of ‘The Little Pine Tree’.” The students have studied subject / verb / complements and compounds with “and,” “or,” or “but.” Students are asked to identify the words in those two constructions—they are also asked to count the words in them. These exercises contain a table like the following.

|How Much I Can Explain |

|Total Words = 92 |Words |Total |% |

| | |Explained |of Text |

|Words in S / V / C patterns |51 |51 |55% |

|Conjunctions: “and,” “or,” “but” |3 |54 |59% |

|FYI +Adjectives and Adverbs |27 |81 |88% |

|FYI + Prepositions and their objects |8 |89 |97 |

|Other words students are not expected to explain—”it,” “When,” and “Oh”|3 |92 |100% |

At this point, students are not expected to get the rows in yellow, but I give the information to teachers so they can see what adding adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases add to what students can explain. Note that in this exercise, students should be able to see that they can already able to explain 59% of the words. Not bad for just one unit.

For the similar exercise in Level One, Unit Six the table is:

|How Much I Can Explain |

|Total Words = 90 |Words |Total |% |

| | |Explained |of Text |

|Words in S / V / C patterns |39 |39 |43% |

|Conjunctions: |2 |41 |46% |

|Adjectives + Adverbs (not in prep phrases) |23 |64 |71% |

|Words in Prepositional Phrases |18 |82 |91% |

|Words students were not expected to explain |8 |90 |100% |

Before this exercise students should have added adjectives and prepositional phrases to their analytical toolboxes. These exercises let students see how much they can already explain—success motivates more success. The counting is dropped in Level Two with “Passages for Analysis,” but by then the students do not need the numbers.

In the tables below, the “S” and “O” columns indicate how many exercises are suggested and how many are optional. Obviously, teachers can use an optional exercise instead of a suggested one. Some of the design described below will be changed as I get feedback from users. The changes will not affect the number of suggested and optional exercises.

Each half of each level includes three “Assessment Quizzes” in the teachers’ “AK” book that are not included in the count. Teachers may want to use one or more of them.

|Level 1 - The Basics |S |O |

|First Half of Level 1 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L1 U1 - Subjects, Verbs, and Complements |9 |8 |

|L1 U2 - Compounding |2 |1 |

|L1 U3 - Adding Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, and Phrases |4 |6 |

|3 Mid-terms | | |

|Second Half of Level 1 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L1 U4 – Punctuation and Capitalization |6 |8 |

|L1 U5 - Pronouns, Case, Number, and Tense |4 |5 |

|L1 U6 - Adding Simple Prepositional Phrases |5 |2 |

|3 Finals | | |

At a conference, I heard primary, middle, high school, and college instructors explain how they teach the eight parts of speech. That obviously does not make sense. In KISS L1 Unit 1, students learn how to identify subjects, verbs, and complements. To find a subject, students ask a question with “Who?” or “What?” before the verb. To identify complements, students ask similar questions “Who?” “Whom?” or “What?” after the subject and verb.

L1 Unit 2 focuses on compounding: “Bill and Mary went to the park.” Without this unit, some students would underline just “Bill” as the subject in the example above. These three exercises give students more practice with identifying the words in S/V/C patterns. L1 Unit 3 not only adds adjectives and adverbs, but students also see how they combine into phrases—“The big bear scared me.”

L1 Units 4 and 5 are similar to the material in most grammar books. L1 Unit 6 adds prepositional phrases to students’ analytical toolbox. The KISS Statistical Studies suggest that about 20% of the words in the writing of students in grades three through eight are in prepositional phrases. (Thus far, the studies suggest that professional writers average 43 %.) For KISS, the most important thing is that the addition of prepositional phrases enables students to see that they can explain roughly 90% of the words in their own writing. Success motivates further learning.

Many textbooks introduce prepositional phrases late in the book, which doesn’t make sense. They also use simplistic, cookie-cutter sentences in their exercises. Verbals as objects of prepositions are introduced in this unit:

He ended (by giving his head a little shake).

Because KISS is the only cumulative grammar that I know of, I want to emphasize that for the rest of the levels, students will be underlining subjects, verbs, labeling complements, and putting parentheses around prepositional phrases. And once a new construction is introduced, students usually will also be identifying them in all later exercises. In doing so, students will realize the differences between such things as “of” and “have,” “it’s” and “its,” “they’re,” “their,” and “there.”

|Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 1 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L1 U1 - Subjects, Verbs, and Complements |9 |8 |

|Single-Word Verbs |1 |1 |

|Finding the Complete Verb Phrase (Tenses) |1 |1 |

|Apostrophes in Contractions |1 |1 |

|Finding the Complete Verb Phrase (Modal) |2 |1 |

|Verbs as Subjects or Complements |1 | |

|More about Verbs as Complements | |1 |

|Understood "You" |1 | |

|“There” as a Subject |1 | |

|Ellipsed verbs (Prozeugma) | |1 |

|Quotation Marks |1 | |

|How Much I Can Explain | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L1 Unit 1 enables students to identify one word verbs, verb phrases and verbs in contractions so that they can identify all the parts of verbs. At this point, students do not need to remember the terms “tense” and “modal”; and they simply label complements “C.” They also learn about verbs that function as subjects or complements.

|L1 U2 - Compounding |2 |1 |

|Recognizing Compounds |1 | |

|How Much I Can Explain |1 |1 |

Understood “you” is in most grammar books, but most textbooks identify “There” as an “expletive,” in a sentence like “There are five men there.” That gives students a term (“expletive”) that they don’t need. In KISS “there” can function as a subject. I was asked how students would know whether the verb is singular or plural. As a subject, “there” appears only in S/V/PN patterns. In that pattern the subject and complement have to be either singular or plural. In the example above, the complement is the plural “men.” Thus the verb has to be “are.” In “There is a man there,” the verb has to be “is.”

The following is the first two sentences for “How Much I Can Explain” in the book for 1st and 2nd graders with the subjects and verbs underlined

From the Smiling Pool came Billy Mink, Little Joe Otter, Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, and old Grandfather Frog. | From the Green Forest came Bobby Coon, Unc’ Billy Possum and Mrs. Possum, Prickly Porky the Porcupine, Whitefoot the Woodmouse, Happy Jack the Gray Squirrel, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Blacky the Crow, Sammy Jay, Ol’ Mistah Buzzard, Mistah Mockingbird, and Stickytoes the Treetoad. |

|L1 U3 - Adding Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, and |4 |6 |

|Phrases | | |

|Identifying Nouns and Pronouns |1 |1 |

|Singular and Plural Nouns | |2 |

|Identifying Adjectives and Adverbs |1 |1 |

|Possessive Nouns and Pronouns Function as Adjectives |1 |1 |

|Identifying Phrases (and Modification) | |1 |

|How Much I Can Explain |1 | |

The exercises on nouns and pronouns are close to those in most books, but KISS stresses that function makes a difference:

The fish were swimming in the pond,

Bill and Jane fish in the pond.

KISS takes an important different explanation to adjectives and adverbs.

Most textbooks tell students that adverbs usually end in “-ly.” But many adverbs don’t—“not,” “now,” “never,” “once,” “always,” “first,” etc. And some adjectives do—“friendly,” “lovely,” and “lonely.” KISS instructional material focuses the students’ attentions on how the words function:

Words or constructions that modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb function as adverbs. Words or constructions that modify a noun or pronoun function as adjectives.

In KISS, students will use these two concepts to identify the adjectival or adverbial functions of other constructions—prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and verbals.

|Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 1 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L1 U4 - Punctuation and Capitalization |5 |2 |

|Punctuating a Simple Sentence |1 |1 |

|Capitalization |1 | |

|Commas in a Series |1 | |

|Replacing Lost Punctuation and Capitalization | |1 |

|How Much I Can Explain—A Passage |1 | |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

L1 Unit 4 begins with exercises that can be found in most grammar books but KISS goes beyond them with “Replacing Lost Punctuation and Capitalization” exercises. They have been praised by users of KISS. In these, the punctuation and capitalization are stripped from a short passage of a real text. Students are asked to replace them. Ideally, these exercises will be reviewed in class, and then the students can be shown what the original writer did and then discuss their differences.

|L1 U5 - Pronouns, Case, Number, and Tense |4 |5 |

|Person, Number, and Case |1 |1 |

|Recognizing Antecedents |1 |1 |

|Identifying Tenses |1 |1 |

|Changing Tenses | |1 |

|How Much I Can Explain—A Passage |1 | |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

KISS exercises on items in Unit 5 do not differ very much from those in most books.

|L1 U6 - Adding Prepositional Phrases |6 |8 |

|What Is a Prepositional Phrase? |1 | |

|The Functions of Prepositional Phrases |2 | |

|Verbs as Objects of Prepositions | |1 |

|Prepositions Can Function as Adverbs | |1 |

|Compound Objects of Prepositions | |1 |

|Separated Objects of Prepositions  | |1 |

|The Logic of Adjectives and Adverbs |1 |1 |

|The Logic of Prepositional Phrases |1 |1 |

|How Much I Can Explain (A Poem) | |1 |

|How Much I Can Explain— |1 | |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

For the first exercise, students simply identify the phrases: “They went (to school). In the following two exercises students draw an arc from the preposition to the word its phrase chunks to. That shows how these phrases become parts of longer phrases.

KISS uses asterisks to indicate that the words are not in the original. The exercise on “Separated Objects of Prepositions” clarifies sentences like the following from Pinocchio:

Picture to yourself a little man (with a small round face) {like an orange}, (*with* a little mouth) that was always laughing, and (*with a* soft, caressing voice) (like a cat).

Without these exercises, most students would be confused about how to label “a little mouth,” and “soft, caressing voice. I’ve not seen this explained in textbooks.

Notice that there are exercises on “function” and on “logic.” In KISS “function” denotes what the word or phrase chunks to; “logic” refers to sub-concepts of David Hume’s claim that all logical connections are identity, time or space, cause/effect, or a combination thereof. I started using Hume’s concepts in my composition courses because many of my peers claimed that whatever question they gave students, the students answered it as a “what?” question. For example, if they wee asked why something happens, the students replied by telling what happened.

|Level 2 - Expanding the Basics |S |O |

|First Half of Level 2 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L2 U1 - The Types of Complements (PA, PN, IO, DO, and zero) |8 |8 |

|L2 U2 - Embedded Prepositional Prases |2 |2 |

|L2 U3 - Adding Three Simple Constructions |5 |5 |

|3 Mid-Terms | | |

|Second Half of Level 2 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L2 U4 - More about S/V/C Patterns |7 |5 |

|L2 U5 - The Complexities of Prepositional Phrases |5 |7 |

|L2 U6 - Compound Main Clauses |3 |3 |

|3 Finals | | |

L2 Unit 1 is described on the next page. Here I will simply state that the definition of direct objects is totally different from the usual “receiving the action of the verb.” In The Miracle of Language, Charles Laird merrily debunks that definition (163-172). He asks questions like what action does “goldfish” receive in “Jimmy saw the goldfish”? (163)

L2 Units 2 and 3 are described below.

Among other things, L2 Unit 4 introduces “Palimpsest Patterns.” “Palimpsests” are writing materials that are scrubbed clean of a text and then written over. Grammar textbooks usually give an incomplete list of “linking verbs,” verbs that have predicate nouns or adjectives as their complements. But what is a student to do with a sentence like:

The reaped field lay yellow.

“Lay” is rarely, if ever, included in that useless list of “linking” verbs. In KISS, “lay yellow” is a palimpsest pattern with “lay” written over “was.” Students then determine the type of complement in the same way as always. “Yellow” is a predicate adjective because it describes the subject “field. For more examples, click here.

Students also have problems with “phrasal verbs,” as in:

Put on your thinking cap.

Is “on” a preposition, an adverb, or part of the verb? Many students mark “on your thinking cap” as a prepositional phrase. KISS, however, focuses on meaning. The sentence means “Put your thinking cap on *your head*” One linguist suggested that students could replace “Put on” with “Don,” but how many college students know what “don” means?

In L2 Unit 5, KISS explains that some prepositional phrases function as indirect objects: “They gave a book to Jim” means the same as “They gave Jim a book. I don’t know of any other textbook that does this, but KISS stresses meaning.

In L2 Unit 6 is explained below in the exercises.

|Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 2 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L2 U1 - The Types of Complements |8 |8 |

|(PA, PN, IO, DO, and zero) | | |

|Mixed Complements |2 |1 |

|A Focus on Predicate Adjectives |1 |1 |

|A Focus on Predicate Nouns |1 |1 |

|Pronouns as Predicate Nouns |1 |1 |

|A Focus on Direct Objects |1 |1 |

|A Focus on Indirect Objects |1 |1 |

|A Focus on the Zero Complement | |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis |1 | |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

In L2 Unit 1, KISS gives students a series of questions to find the types of complements:

1. If nothing answers the question “Verb + whom or what?”, the pattern is S/V. [STOP: You have your answer.]

2. If the word that answers the question describes the subject, the pattern is S/V/PA. [STOP: You have your answer.]

3. If the word that answers the question is a noun (or pronoun) that renames the subject and the verb implies an equality or identity between subject and complement, the pattern is S/V/PN. [STOP: You have your answer.]

4. If a word or construction answers the question and is not a predicate noun or predicate adjective, it has to be an indirect or direct object. An indirect object indicates the thing or person “for” or “to” whom something is done. [STOP: You have your answer.]

5. Any other complement has to be a direct object. Note that there are three exercises on “Mixed Complements.” Many students will understand how to do this with just those three exercises. They could skip the other thirteen exercises in this unit!

|L2 U2 - Embedded Prepositional Phrases |2 |2 |

|Identification |1 |1 |

|Passage for Analysis |1 | |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L2 Unit 2 introduces the concept of embedding. In this case it simply means that one prepositional phrase chunks to the one before it by modifying the first’s object:

Heidi had a basket (with twelve white rolls) (for the grandmother).

“For the grandmother” modifies “rolls” in the phrase “with twelve white rolls.” And the “with” phrase modifies “basket,” the direct object of the subject and verb—“Heidi had.”

|L2 U3 - Adding Three Simple Constructions |5 |5 |

|Mixed Constructions |2 | |

|Nouns Used as Adverbs |1 |1 |

|Interjections | |2 |

|Direct Address | |2 |

|Passage for Analysis |1 | |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

L2 Unit 3 could be put in Level 1, especially for first and second graders:

“Oh! [Inj.] Mommy [DirA], Tuesday [NuA] I’m going to be five years [NuA] old.”

|Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 2 | S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L2 U4 - More about S/V/C Patterns |7 |5 |

|Pred. Ajective or Part of the Verb? |1 |1 |

|Prozeugma—Ellipsis in S/V/C Patterns |1 | |

|Varied Positions in the S/V/C Pattern | |1 |

|Palimpsest Patterns |1 |1 |

|Phrasal Verbs: Preposition? Adverb? Or Part of the Verb? |1 |1 |

|The Subjunctive Mood |1 |1 |

|Fix Punctuation & Analyze |1 | |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

In L2 Unit 4 “Predicate Adjective or Part of the Verb” has been moved to earlier in KISS. It involves passive voice. (Most books don’t effectively teach passives in the first place.) Faced with a sentence “The door was closed,” many students will mark “closed” as a predicate adjective. That is a reasonable answer. See “Passive Voice or Predicate Adjective?” These students will be confused the about the passive. Thus the instructional material was modified here to encourage students to mark words like “closed” as part of the verb phrase. When they get to passives, they will be able to see the difference.

“Prozeugma” is the rhetorical term for ellipsis of the verb if the verb repeats a previous verb. You probably will not find this explained in most grammar books. The following example is from “How Brave Walter Hunted Wolves,” in The Lilac Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang.

“Caro lives in the dog house, Bravo in the stable, Putte with the stableman, Murre a little here and a little there, and Kuckeliku lives in the hen house, that is his kingdom.”

Some students were surprised by “Varied Positions” in which complements come before the subject and verb, as in “Old and ugly he was.”

|L2 U5 - The Complexities of Prepositional Phrases |5 |7 |

|Prepositional Phrases as Indirect Objects |1 |1 |

|The "To" Problem |1 |1 |

|A Mini-Lesson on "To" and "Too" | |1 |

|Verbs as Objects of Prepositions |1 | |

|Preposition or Subordinate Conjunction? |1 |1 |

|Ellipsed Objects of Prepositions | |1 |

|Prepositions that Follow their Objects | |1 |

|Passage for Analysis |1 | |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

Prepositional phrases as Indirect Objects is described above. L2 Unit 5 also addresses the problems with “too,” “to,” and “two.” Verbs as Objects of Prepositions is a related in that “to” is often ellipsed, as in “Garfield does little (but sleep and eat).” Because students have not yet been learning about subordinate clauses, this unit also includes exercises on “Preposition or Subordinate Conjunction?” Because Louie still marks subordinate clauses in these exercises, these exercises should be easy.

As for “Ellipsed Objects of Prepositions,” The following is from Black Beauty:

All that could be piled up inside on the front seat were put in.

“inside” and “in” can be considered as adverbs, but the ellipsed object of both is in the preceding sentence. (This is another reason for “passages” for analysis.)

|L2 U6 - Compound Main Clauses |3 |3 |

|Compounds with “and,” “or,” or “but” |1 | |

|Compounds with Colons, Dashes, or Semicolons |1 |1 |

|"So" and "For" as Conjunctions |1 | |

|Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L2 Unit 6 explains the difference between “clause” and “sentence.” The best way to do this is to use compound sentences. At this point, Louie stops putting vertical lines at the end of every main clause. They become the responsibility of students.

Colons often signal similarities (details):

He saw a strange sight: | a poor steed was tugging at the vines [Adj. to “vines” which were fastened to the bell]. |

The second main clause gives the details of the “strange sight.” The same applies to dashes, but they are used less often than colons and semicolons:

“You are a sight— | your feathers are ruffled, | and you are not half so handsome [Adv. to “handsome” as I am].” |

Semi-colons often imply a difference;

Things do not change; | we change. |

But semicolons are also used to join main clauses of that form a similar group:

They nibbled the popcorn; | they nibbled the candy; | they nibbled the nuts; | and they nibbled the cakes. |

Many textbooks claim that “So” and “for” are coordinating conjunctions. In KISS these two words can function as coordinating or as subordinating conjunctions. The logic here is that the logic of “and,” “or,” and “but” is whole/part. “And” makes a whole group; “or” splits a group, and “but” makes an exception in a group. But the logic of “so” and “for” is basically cause/effect. “So” and “For” are coordinating when they begin a sentence, and when they are preceded by a “colon” or “semicolon:

1. But the prince said [DO she must be called]. | So Cinderella was called. |

2. The girl knew [DO no one else could help her]; | so she promised [DO what the dwarf asked]. |

3. Cinderella obeyed, | but she wept. | For she, too, wished to go to the ball. |

4. The princess wept; | for she could not bear to touch the cold, ugly frog. |

In general, a “so” clause states an effect (result) of what is in the preceding clause; a “for” clause states the cause (“because”) of something in the preceding clause (which may be in the preceding sentence).

In sentence #1, “Cinderella was called” is the effect of what the prince said. In #2, her promising is the effect of no one else being able to help her. In #3, her weeping was the effect of wanting to go to the ball, and in #4 the princess wept because she couldn’t bear touching the frog.

Students will study “for” and “so” as subordinating conjunctions when they get to adverbial clauses, meanwhile, Louie will still put brackets around subordinate clauses.

(To tell students just that these two conjunctions are only coordinating totally ignores the logic in grammar.)

|Level 3 - Verbals and Sub Clauses |S |O |

|First Half of Level 3 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L3 U1 - Distinguishing Finite Verbs from Verbals |7 |4 |

|L3 U2 - Noun Clauses as Direct Objects |4 |6 |

|L3 U3 - Mixed & Embedded Subordinate Clauses |4 |5 |

|3 Mid-Terms | | |

|Second Half of Level 3 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L3 U4 - Adverbial Subordinate Clauses |6 |6 |

|L3 U5 - Adjectival Subordinate Clauses |4 |4 |

|L3 U6 - Sub Clauses (Additional) Noun |5 |5 |

|3 Finals | | |

All verbs function in one of two ways—finite verb or verbal. Finite verbs are the verbs that make clauses—the verbs that students will have been underlining twice.

A verbal is a verb that functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb. L3 Unit 1 starts with identifying verbals so that they don’t underline them twice.

If they don’t learn it, they will have problems identifying clauses in their own writing. That most textbooks don’t do this is a major reason for their uselessness. A third grader wrote: “I saw a crowd of people standing by our window.” Given the standard definition of a “verb” as denoting action, many students would underline “standing” twice as a “finite verb.” It isn’t.

L3 Unit 2 explores the question of “Main Clause or Subordinate?” I have not seen in any grammar book that even raises this. How should we decide which clauses are main, and which are subordinate in the following sentence:

The people {of the village} cried, [DO “O [Inj] brothers [DirA], your words are good (PA). We will move our lodges (DO) {to the foot} {of the magic mountain}. We can light our wigwam fires (DO) {from its flames}, and we shall not fear [DO that we shall perish {in the long, cold nights} {of winter}].” |

If we consider the entire quotation as the direct object, we will run into a problem. To address this, KISS considers the first main clause in the quotation as a direct object and the remaining main clauses as main clauses. Multiple “main” clauses often appear within a quotation:

The people {of the village} cried, [DO “O [Inj] brothers [DirA], your words are good (PA)]. | We will move our lodges (DO) {to the foot} {of the magic mountain}. | We can light our wigwam fires (DO) {from its flames}, | and we shall not fear [DO that we shall perish {in the long, cold nights} {of winter}].” |

Unit 3 presents students with exercises on mixed and on embedded subordinate clauses. Many students will be confused if they do the mixed first. If they can do Unit 3 first, they may not need all of the second half of this unit.

Units 4, 5, and 6 are described below.

|Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 3 |S |O |

|First Half Totals |15 |15 |

|L3 U1 - Distinguishing Finite Verbs from Verbals |7 |4 |

|The Noun Test |1 |1 |

|The "To" Test |2 | |

|The Sentence Test |2 | |

|Mixed Exercises |2 |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

In L3 Unit 1 KISS gives students three tests to make the distinction. In previous exercises, Louie puts all verbals in small bold letters and tells students to ignore them. Starting here the directions in all exercises tell students to label verbals “V” until they learn the three different kinds. I suggest that the Mixed Exercises be done last because students will be confused by them until they have done at least one exercise on each test.

|L3 U2 - Noun Clauses as Direct Objects |4 |6 |

|Identification |1 | |

|Quotations as Direct Objects |1 |1 |

|Subordinate Clauses as Interjections |1 | |

|Subordinate Clauses - DO or Interjection? |1 |2 |

|Quotations: Main Clause or Subordinate? | |1 |

|Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L3 Unit 2 focuses on noun clauses as direct objects because they are so frequent and because Louie has been marking them from the beginning. In working with stories for first graders, I found many sentences such as

“‘We are going to have a picnic,’ said Mary.” Clauses like the above example appear about ten times more than the “Mary said ‘we are going to have a picnic.’” format.

I haven’t seen a textbook that explains how to explain “said Mary” at the end of the sentence. The exercises for this are therefore preceded by one on subordinate clauses that function as interjections—another construction that you probably will not find in most textbooks. The following sentence is from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne:

This faculty—I verified it later—gave him

a range of vision far superior to Ned Land’s.

If “I verified it later” doesn’t function as an interjection, what is it? Click here for more on this. Given that some subordinate clauses do function as interjections, KISS also explains clauses like “said Mary” as an interjection.

|L3 U3 - Mixed Subordinate Clauses |4 |5 |

|Identifying Clauses |2 |1 |

|Embedded Subordinate Clauses |2 |1 |

|Style - Parallel Constructions | |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L3 Unit 3 introduces common subordinate clauses that function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. Until this point Louie put brackets around these clauses and labeled them. Because he did that, recognizing these clauses should be easy for students who have passively seen them in numerous exercises. Students can determine whether the clause is a noun, adjective, or adverb in the same way that they identify simple adjectives and adverbs. Students will have seen embedded clauses, but in L3 Unit 3, the embeddings are deeper. KISS gives students suggestions and a process for untangling clauses that are higher than level two. “First look for subordinating conjunctions, and start from the last S/V/C pattern in the sentence.” The following sentence is from Henry James’ “Daisy Miller.” I’ve numbered the clause level and function for each clause.

There are, indeed, many hotels (PN), [Adv. (1) (cause) to “many” for the entertainment of tourists is the business (PN) of the place, [Adj.(2) to “place” which, [Inj. (3) as many travelers will remember], is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake--a lake [Adj. (3) that to “lake” it behooves every tourist [S/IO] to visit (DO)]]]. |

|Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 3 |S |O |

|Second Half of Level 3 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L3 U4 - Adverbial Subordinate Clauses |6 |6 |

|Identification |2 | |

|“As” and “than” as Adverbial Conjunctions |1 |1 |

|“So” and “for” as Adverbial Conjunctions |2 |1 |

|Logic of Adverbial Clauses |1 |2 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L3 Unit 4 focuses on adverbial clauses. “As” and “than” often involve ellipsis, as in “Do as much as *it is* possible.”

“Among all the beautiful colors sat a woman who was fairer than they *were fair*.”

The logic of “so” and “for” subordinate clauses is the same as in main clauses. “So” introduces effects and “for” introduce causes,

“So” can function alone, as in

“Tell me where to hide [Adv. (purpose) to “Tell” so the princess cannot find me].” |

More often, “so” functions as an adverb that creates a sub clause with “that”:

“The Bean laughed so loud [Adv. (result) to “so” that it burst].” |

“For” is always “for”:

“We must soon start, Clara, [Adv. (cause) to “soon” for the sun is already low].” |

In addition to cause/effect, the logic of adverbial clauses includes time, space, result, purpose, manner, condition, concession, and comparison.

|L3 U5 - Adjectival Subordinate Clauses |4 |4 |

|Identification |2 | |

|Mid-Branching Adjectival Clauses |1 |1 |

|Restrictive and Non-restrictive Modifiers |1 |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

In L3 Unit 5, Mid-Branching clauses appear between the subject and verb in the clause in which they appear. Some students have trouble with these. The following two examples are from Grimm’s “The Three Tasks.”

1. He [who has performed the first task] must find the key.

2. Their younger brother, [who had always been thought the simpleton of the family,] set out to seek his fortune.

These two examples also illustrate the basic restrictive and non-restrictive distinction. The first is restrictive because it restricts the meaning of “He.” The second, which is set off with commas, is non-restrictive because the brother is already identified—the subordinate clause simply adds information about the brother. In essence, this is a question the commas, and if you start looking for examples, you’ll find that in some sentences the difference is not always that distinct.

|L3 U6 - Sub Clauses (Additional) Noun |5 |5 |

|Mixed Noun Clauses |2 | |

|Noun Clauses as Objects of Prepositions |1 |1 |

|Noun Clauses as Subjects |1 |1 |

|Noun Clauses as Predicate Nouns |1 |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

Noun clauses that function as objects of prepositions, subjects, or predicate nouns are relatively rare, so Unit 6 gives students more practice with them.

|Level 4 – Appositives, Postponed Adjectives and More |S |O |

|First Half of Level 4 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L4 U1 -Appositives & - Post Positioned Adjectives |9 |7 |

|L4 U2 – Ellipsis in Clauses |3 |4 |

|L4 U3 - Clauses and Style |3 |4 |

|3 Mid-terms |  |  |

|Second Half of Level 4 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L4 U4 - Advanced Exercises on Clauses |3 |4 |

|L4 U5 – Intro to the 3 Types of Verbals |3 |4 |

|L4 U6 Passive Voice & Retained Complements |9 |7 |

|3 Finals | | |

The materials in Level Four are ignored (or poorly “covered”) in most grammar textbooks.

L4 Unit 1 is on appositives and post-positioned adjectives, both of which can be viewed as ellipsed subordinate clauses. The examples are from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

SC: Mr. Roach, [who was the head gardener,] was not without curiosity.

App: Mr. Roach, the head gardener, was not without curiosity.

SC: There was something [that was mysterious] in the air that morning.

PPA: There was something mysterious in the air that morning.

A state standards document defined an appositive as “A word or phrase that restates or modifies an immediately preceding noun,” as in “Uncle Carlos” (my emphasis). My favorite example of the silliness of that explanation is the opening paragraph of Henry James' Daisy Miller which ends with the following sentence:

But at the “Trois Couronnes,” it must be added, there are other features that are much at variance with these suggestions: neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of legation; Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish boys walking about held by the hand, with their governors; a view of the sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Castle of Chillon.

“German waiters,” “Russian princesses,” “Polish boys,” and “view” are appositives to “features.” Another problem is that appositives are usually limited to modifying “nouns.” (See below.)

L4 Units 2, 3, and 4 are explained below.

L4 Unit 5 teaches students how to distinguish the three types of verbals (gerunds, gerundives, and infinitives), and their subjects. Most textbooks refer to gerundives as “participles,” but to do so is confusing. “Participle” designates the form of the word—the “-ing,” “-ed,” “-en,” etc. ending. Both gerunds and gerundives have participial form. Infinitives do not.

L4 Unit 6 (described below) is on passive voice and retained complements. Here I’ll simply emphasize that students are often told not to use passive voice, but teachers might as well explain that in ancient Greek. The students cannot understand it because they cannot identify the subjects and verbs which are what passives are about.

|Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 4 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L4 U1 - Appositives & Post Positioned Adjectives Totals |9 |7 |

|Simple Appositives |2 | |

|Elaborated Appositives |2 | |

|The Punctuation of Appositives |1 |1 |

|Rewriting: MC to SC to Appositive | |1 |

|Other Constructions as Appositives |2 | |

|Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

|Post-Positioned Adjectives |2 | |

|Replacing Lost Capitalization & Punctuation | |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L4 Unit 1 addresses appositives and post-positioned adjectives. Most textbooks deal only with very simple appositives — nouns that function as appositives to nouns.

We were guided by our old acquaintance, the trapper.

But within KISS we can explain much more. In addition, students should learn to deal with elaborated appositives — appositives that are themselves modified by prepositional phrases, clauses, gerundives, etc. They can also explore how other constructions (finite verbs, prepositional phrases, clauses, etc.) can function as appositives:

She struggled, kicked and bit, until her attacker let her go.

The three finite verbs do not denote three distinct acts: “struggled” denotes a general concept which is made more specific in “kicked” and “bit.” Can we not then say that the last two finite verbs function in apposition?

Gerunds can function as appositives:

I brought off a new trick, jumping off Herakles

with a standing back-somersault, and landing on my feet.

The “trick” is the “jumping off Herakles” and “landing on my feet.”

Another example is from The Master of Ballantrae, by Robert Louis Stevenson:

And on one thing my mind is made up: I will not hang if I can help it.

Is not “I will not hang if I can help it” the “thing” to which it stands in apposition. For more examples, click here. If the writers of textbooks and standards tried to use their definitions and books to analyze randomly selected sentences, they would see how useless their books and standards really are.

|L4 U2 - Ellipsis in Clauses |3 |4 |

|Semi-Reduced Clauses |1 |1 |

|Writing Semi-Reduced Clauses | |1 |

|Mixed Ellipsis in Subordinate Clauses |1 |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

L4 Unit 2 on ellipsis is rarely taught. First it explains “Semi-Reduced” Clauses:

[When they were going home,] they saw a beautiful new car.

When going home, they saw a beautiful new car.

The second is considered “Semi-Reduced” because the sentence can be further reduced to a verbal:

Going home, they saw a beautiful new car.

This unit also explains that after some words, especially “than” and “as,” words are ellipsed in subordinate clauses:

He looked gloomier than ever.

means

He looked gloomier [than *he had* ever *looked before*].”

|L4 U3 - Clauses and Style |3 |4 |

|Rewriting Subordinate Clauses as Main and Main as Subordinate | |1 |

|The Logic of Subordinate Clauses |2 | |

|Style - Parallel Constructions |1 |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L4 Unit 3 addresses the logic of clauses and also explains that parallel constructions put parallel ideas into the same construction. The following example is from “Endicott and the Red Cross,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

Here we stand on our own soil, [which we have bought with our goods], [which we have won with our swords], [which we have cleared with our axes], [which we have tilled with the sweat of our brows], [which we have sanctified with our prayers to the God that brought us hither].

Teachers try to teach parallelism, but students have trouble understanding it—again because they cannot identify (and thus see) the grammatical constructions that are involved.

|Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 4 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L4 U4 - Mixed Exercises on Clauses |3 |4 |

|The Witch in "Which" (and "Who") |1 |1 |

|Mixed Exercises |1 |1 |

|Replacing Capitalization & Punctuation | |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis |1 | |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L4 Unit 4 explains how most pronouns refer to nouns or pronouns that are called their “antecedents.” (“Antecedent” means something that came before them.) As a subordinating conjunction, “which” has the “magical” power of referring to an entire clause, verb, or other construction. In the following sentence, for example, the antecedent of “which” is the entire preceding clause, “George’s health was improving.”

George’s health was improving, which made his wife happy.

We can see this by restating the idea without the “which”: “That George’s health was improving made his wife happy.” For more, click here. The “Mixed Exercises” review other advanced subordinate clauses.

|L4 U5 – Intro to the 3 Types Verbals |3 |4 |

|Identification |2 |1 |

|More on Subjects of Verbals |1 |1 |

|Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

L4 Unit 5 introduces the three types of verbals. (Until this time, students simply labeled verbals “V.”) As with many things in KISS, students are given a process to make the distinctions.

Gerunds always function as nouns: Subject: Swimming is good exercise.

Gerundives “always” function as adjectives.

Having rested, the students went to the dance. [“Having rested” modifies “students.”]

Infinitives function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.

Noun: To eat is what I want to do. Adjective: This is a good place to rest.

Adverb: They came to play.

The easiest way to identify the type of verbal is by the principle of exclusion: if a verb is not finite, not a gerund, and not a gerundive, then it has to be an infinitive. There is no other choice left. The “to” with many infinitives helps, but not all infinitives include the “to.” (Users of KISS have told me that they were taught that infinitives are always introduced by “to.”)

The subjects of gerunds are in possessive case:

Tom’s missing the season hurt the team.

The subjects of gerundives are the word or words that the gerundive modifies:

Susan, having hit a home run, was very happy.

The subjects of infinitives are either understood or in the objective case. In “Sarah wanted to wash the car,” everyone understands that Sarah will be doing the washing. In “Sarah wanted him to wash the car,” everyone knows that someone else (in this case, a male) should be doing the washing. The point here is that the subjects of verbals are not very hard to understand.

|L4 U6 - Passive Voice & Retained Complements |9 |7 |

|Identification |2 |1 |

|Passive Voice or Predicate Adjective |1 |1 |

|Simple Retained Complements |1 | |

|Retained Complements - Clauses |1 | |

|Retained Complements - Infinitives |1 | |

|Retained Complements - Mixed | |1 |

|Rewriting from Passive Voice to Active & from Active to |1 |1 |

|Passive  | | |

|Rewriting a Passage from Passive to Active? |1 | |

|Replacing Capitalization & Punctuation |1 | |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|A Poem for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

In active voice, the subject does whatever the verb means; in passive it does not.

Active: “Her grandmother gave Candice a hug.”

Passive: “Candice was given a hug by her grandmother.”

Linguists consider active voice primary, and so passives have retained complement. Thus in the passive KISS explains “hug” as a “simple retained complement. Note that the “doer” in passives can be given in a prepositional phrase usually with “by.” Clauses can also so function:

Active: Someone told grandmamma (IO) [DO how the miracle had happened].

Passive: Grandmama was told (P) [RDO how the miracle had happened].

|Level 5 - Types of Verbals and Noun Absolutes |S |O |

|First Half of Level 5 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L5 U1 - Verbals -- A Focus on Gerunds |3 |5 |

|L5 U2 - Verbals - A Focus on Gerundives |3 |5 |

|L5 U3 - Verbals - A Focus on Infinitives |9 |5 |

|3 Mid-Terms or Finals |  | |

|Second Half of Level 5 - Totals |15 |15 |

|L5 U4 - Delayed Subjects & Sentences |4 |7 |

|L5 U5 - Noun Absolutes |6 |6 |

|L5 U6 - Review and Style |5 |2 |

|3 Finals |  | |

When I first taught KISS, I had a college student who did not follow the sequence for analyzing sentences. When we got to verbals, he marked parts of finite verbs as verbals. In a sentence like:

“I am going home for supper,”

he would mark “going” as a verbal. Most grammar books (including KISS) would consider it as part of the “verb.”

But as noted above, KISS is based on the cognitive psychology of Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and other cognitivists. For them, most words refer not just to a definition, but to a concept that is part of a hierarchy of related concepts. In Level 3, Unit 1, KISS introduces “Distinguishing Finite Verbs from Verbals,” so that students could label them “V.” Level 4, Unit 5 shows students how to identify the three sub-concepts of “verbal”—gerunds, gerundives, infinitives, and their subjects. Level 5, Units 1, 2, and 3 give more exercises for each of the three. Level 5, Unit 4 introduces delayed subjects. Examples are given below, but they are rarely explained in grammar books.

Noun absolutes (Level 5, Unit 5) consist of a noun and a gerundive:

I heard a crash of something falling in the stable.

In textbooks absolutes are poorly explained, if introduced at all. An NCTE critic of KISS wrote “I have never read a description that defines an absolute phrase as anything other than a sentence modifier, a structure that makes a comment on the sentence as a whole.” I think that you will agree with me that he should have read more.

Paul Roberts, widely well-known in the 1950s, nicely discussed them basically as adverbs in his Understanding Grammar (352-355). One of his examples is “Her work done, Aunt Flo sat down for a cup of tea.” (354). Viewing them as adverbs is far better than as “sentence modifiers.” In “Tom said that ‘Her work done, Aunt Flo sat down for a cup of tea’,” the absolute modifies the verb in a subordinate clause, not the entire sentence. Roberts also notes that the noun absolute can function as the subject of a main clause and as an appositive. (355) George O. Curme, acknowledged as one of the two greatest traditional grammarians, gives examples of the nominative absolutes as nouns. For his examples, click here.

Perhaps the strongest support for the KISS view is Otto Jespersen’s theory of “nexus” and “junction.” Nexus is an “S/V/C pattern in which the verb may be finite or a verbal. (If the verb is a verbal, he calls it “dependent nexus.”) “Junction” is his word for “modification.” Among his numerous examples of nexus, he gives:

The General had two horses shot under him. (310)

His argument is that “horses shot” is a meaningful unit. In other words, the basic idea of the sentence is that the horses were shot, and not that he had horses.

|Exercises in the 1st Half of Level 5 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L5 U1 - A Focus on Gerunds |3 |5 |

|The Subjects of Gerunds |1 |1 |

|Gerunds - Nouns Used as Adverbs |1 |1 |

|Replace Capitalizaton and Punctuation | |1 |

|Passages for Analysis |1 |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

Gerunds (L5 Unit 1) can function in any way a noun can.

Subject: Swimming is good exercise.

Predicate Noun: The best hobby is reading.

Object of Preposition: Mary was thinking (about her father’s playing golf.)

The subject of a gerund is always a possessive, as in “father’s playing golf.”

Direct Object: They love skiing.

Years ago on a mailing list, someone asked how to explain “fishing” in a sentence like “They went fishing.” I copied all the different responses into a fourteen page document. In KISS, the answer is simple—“fishing” is a gerund (verbal noun) that functions as an adverb! (KISS!)

|L5 U2 - A Focus on Gerundives |3 |5  |

|Identification – Subjects of Gerundives |2 |  |

|Gerundive or Gerund as NuA? |1 |1  |

|Style - Rewriting Gerundives as Finite Verbs and Finite Verbs |  |1 |

|as Gerundives | | |

|Style - From Main Clause to Subordinate Clause to Gerundive |  |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun |  |1 |

Gerundives (L5 Unit 2) function as adjectives. In “Taking a long breath, she put down her little bowl.” “She” is the one who is “taking.”

In some cases, a verbal can be explained in two ways (gerund or gerundive)—“Then he and Heidi together put the heavy sheet on the bed, tucking the ends in well.” Based on the KISS Psycholinguistic Model, I would explain “tucking” as a gerund that functions as a NuA to “put,” because “put” would already be in STM. The model suggests that words (and constructions) chunk to whatever is meaningfully closer in STM. (I would, however, accept it as a gerundive to “he” and “Heidi.”)

Many students consider a written sentence as set in cement. The last exercise looks like this: (The sentence is from Stephen Crane’s “The Blue Hotel.”)

MC: The cowboy had been steadily gazing at the Swede. | He then spoke: | “What’s wrong with you, mister?” |

Sub Clause: The cowboy, [Adj. to “cowboy” who had been steadily gazing at the Swede,] then spoke: | "What’s wrong with you, mister?"

Gerundive: The cowboy, having been steadily gazing at the Swede, then spoke: | “What’s wrong with you, mister?” |

Here again, I hope to make more exercises with other constructions for companion “Reading, Writing, and Style” books for each Level.

|L5 U3 - A Focus on Infinitives |9 |5 |

|Subjects of Infinitives |1 |1 |

|Infinitives as Subjects and Complements | |1 |

|Preposition "For" + Infinitive as Subject |1 | |

|Infinitives as Objects of Prepositions |1 |1 |

|As Adjectives or Adverbs |2 | |

|Ellipsed Infinitives in Complements |1 |1 |

|Ellipsed Infinitives: *to be* to" |1 | |

|Passages for Analysis |1 |1 |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

L5 Unit 3 reinforces that if a verbal is not a gerund or a gerundive, it has to be an infinitive. Infinitives can function as a noun, adjective, or adverb. The subject of an infinitive is in the objective case, as in “That bit of glass in his heart made him tease little Gerda.” KISS explains “him” as both an indirect object of “made” and as the subject of the infinitive “tease.” “Gerda” is the direct object of “tease.” The entire infinitive phrase is the direct object of “made.” (Note that this is another example of Jespersen’s “nexus.” I know of any other grammar book that explains that words can two functions at the same time.)

In “There was not time to think of sleep.” “to think” is an adjective to “time.”

In “I have not come to take away the throne,” “to take” is an adverb to “not” which is an adverb to “have come.”

Having read a number of grammar textbooks and browsed others, I became more and more confused by their varied definitions of “objective” and “subject” complements. KISS eliminates these terms by analyzing the relevant phrases as nexal infinitive phrases with the infinitive “to be” ellipsed. The KISS approach reduces the number of concepts that students must deal with, and it also better aligns the grammatical explanations with the meanings of the sentences:

“You have made him angry!”

Some books would explain “angry” as a subject complement; others as an objective complement. In KISS “him” is explained as the subject of an ellipsed “to be,” and “angry” as its predicate adjective.

“You have made him *to be* angry!”

For more on ellipsed infinitives with “*to be* to,” click here.

|Exercises in the 2nd Half of Level 5 |S |O |

|Totals |15 |15 |

|L5 U4 - Delayed Subjects & Sentences |4 |7 |

|Infinitives as Delayed Subjects |1 |1 |

|Subordinate Clauses as Delayed Subjects |1 |1 |

|Delayed Subjects & Sentences |1 |1 |

|Mixed |1 |1 |

|Replace Capitalizaton and Punctuation | |1 |

|A Passage for Analysis | |1 |

|Just for Fun | |1 |

You will probably not find “Delayed Subjects” in most grammar books. In this common construction the main subject is usually “it,” and the meaningful subject is delayed.

[Infinitive] “It is difficult to understand him.” means “To understand him is difficult.

[Subordinate clause] “It was her idea [that the restaurant would be profitable.”] means “That the restaurant would be profitable was her idea.”

|L5 U5 - Noun Absolutes |6 |6 |

|Noun Absolutes That Function as Adverbs |1 |1 |

|Ellpsis in Noun Absolutes |1 |1 |

|Style - Rewriting Sentences with Noun Absolutes | |1 |

|Noun Absolutes That Function as Nouns |2 |1 |

|Replace Capitalizaton and Punctuation | |1 |

|Passages for Analysis |1 |1 |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

The theory behind the KISS explanations of noun absolutes was described above. Unit 5 introduces Noun Absolutes. The following functions as an adverb:

“So we went on, John chuckling all the way home.”

Most modern textbooks do not explain that absolutes can function as nouns, but you can find numerous examples similar to:

“So we went on, (with John chuckling all the way home}.”

In this example, the absolute functions as a noun, the object of the preposition “with.” Another example of absolutes as nouns:

Subject: James coming through the smoke was a big relief.

For more about noun absolutes, click here.

|L5 U6 - Review and Style |5 |2 |

|From Passive to Active and Active to Passive |1 | |

|MC to Sub to Appositive or PPA |1 | |

|MC to NAbs & NAbs to MC |1 | |

|Passages for Analysis |1 |2 |

|Just for Fun |1 | |

Unit 6 is about rewriting constructions in Level 5 from one construction to another. As noted above, if I have the time, the “Reading, Writing, and Style” books will contain many more of these rewriting exercises for even young students. They will start for Level 1, with, for example:

They live in house on Broad Street. The house is big and brown.

They live in a big and brown house on Broad Street.

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My examples throughout these explanations are not comprehensive, but when students have mastered noun absolutes, they will be able to understand and explain the function of every word in the first sentence of Treasure Island. It is one 90-word main clause that begins with a 48-word noun absolute. I sincerely thank the teacher who brought the following sentence to my attention.

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17–, and go back to the time when my father kept the “Admiral Benbow” inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodgings under our roof.

[pic]

Thank you for reading this, and I hope that you will not only use KISS, but help to develop it. One way would be to create a KISS Grammar Group in your area. If the group has a mailing (discussion) list, you can both ask and answer questions in that group.

(I’m looking for help to develop a non-profit organization that will improve and keep KISS available after I cannot. As T. S. Eliot has J. Alfred Prufrock say,

“I grow old . . . I grow old . . .

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”)

Remember that you can make additional exercises or even entire books based on the interests of a group—4H groups, scout groups, religious groups. I have to use only texts that are in the public domain, so you probably will need to get permission for other texts. The Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg have thousands of public domain texts on many different subjects.

The only thing I ask is that you do not change any KISS terminology. If you look at a number of grammar books, you will find that they define terms differently. That has been a major problem in the teaching of grammar. If you label your books KISS, other users should not be confused by changes in terms.

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