Pre-AP: Grammar Review

Don't panic about grammar.

True story: When I was in high school doing English Pre-AP and AP, they never taught us grammar. It was a scary time in English-Teacher-History when they thought that just by reading and writing a lot, we'd have good grammar. This is partially true; I had good grammar, but I had no idea what anything was called. I just knew what "sounded right" - which I'm sure is what a lot of you rely on, too.

I had to learn all my grammar from my German classes, and let me tell you, German teachers are not known for understanding and careful remediation.

Be calm. Let me clarify:

An independent clause just has to have two things. A subject and a verb.

For example:

• He goes.
• You write.
• She smells.

Notice that each one of those also expresses a complete thought.
Simple sentences can also have other things, like prepositional phrases, adverbs, adjectives.

• He goes slowly. Slowly is an adverb. It modifies goes. This is still a simple sentence.
• You write on the board. On is a preposition; on the board is a prepositional phrase. It gives the location of the writing.
• She smells the scratch-and-sniff sticker. The scratch-and-sniff sticker is a noun, yes, but it is not the subject. The subject of a sentence is who or what is doing the action.

REMINDERS: An independent clause is also known as a simple sentence, which makes sense. That's easy to remember because "independent" pretty much means that something can stand alone, right? And that's what a simple sentence can do. Simple sentence = can stand alone = independent clause. (Or at least that's how I remember it.)

Now you write a few independent clauses.

A dependent clause is the same thing as an independent clause, but it has a subordinating conjunction stuck to the front of it. (Google "AWUBIS" for a complete list of these conjunctions.)

For example:

• Before he goes... notice that this is the same subject and verb combo I used above. I just added an AWUBIS on there. Without the AWUBIS ("He goes.") it makes sense on its own. It expresses a complete thought. With the AWUBIS, it no longer expresses a complete thought.
• Because you write... same deal, right? There's a subject and a verb, but because there's the word because (an AWUBIS) in front of it, it no longer makes sense on its own.
• Since she smells... same deal. There's a subject and verb, but it doesn't make sense now that since is there.

Now you write a few dependent clauses.

A prepositional phrase often tells where something is in relation to something else physically (above, below, behind), or chronologically (before, after). These are very basic; I'm sure you remember them from middle school. Most importantly, a prepositional phrase can contain a noun, but the subject of a sentence cannot be in a prepositional phrase.

Google a list of prepositions. Look at the warm-up where we wrote some.

Read this:
After the long Friday, I ordered queso at my favorite Mexican food place in town instead of ordering take-out.

All the stuff in orange are prepositional phrases. If I'm trying to determine where the subject and verb are, the first thing I'm going to do is find and cross out all the prepositional phrases, because the subject can't be in there. This is a simple sentence.

Compound sentences are easy. Just put two independent clauses together with a FANBOYS (coordinating conjunction) + comma in between them.

• I ate the chips, and I got fatter. Notice that there are two complete sentences. They're just stuck together. If you read both of them independently, they both make sense.
• I wanted queso, so we went out to eat. Two complete sentences stuck together with a FANBOYS and a comma.

Write a few compound sentences. Double-check that you have an independent clause (AKA complete sentence) on each side.

The ONLY variation is that you can use a semicolon instead of a FANBOYS + comma. Save this for a dramatic moment in your writing.

Write a compound sentence with a semicolon. Double-check that you have an independent clause (AKA complete sentence) on each side.

Clear as mud? If you need more help, it's easy to find tutorials on YouTube, or try my favorite grammar website - http://chompchomp.com/