HW 10/18: Using Active Verbs

Knowing and using a rich variety of vocabulary words is an essential component of confident, skillful, precise written expression.  I believe that you already know a great many "level-2" (and beyond!) vocabulary words.  Furthermore, I am not convinced that studying new lists of vocab words would necessarily be the most effective, efficient way for us to improve our writing--not until we are at least using the words we already know!  So, here is another idea: how about if we focus on a few places where it makes sense to use upgraded, specific language?  Perhaps we can train ourselves to anticipate using certain types of words in specific places to convey precise ideas?!  Sounds intriguing to me.  :)

The first place we should consider using "level-2" vocabulary is in featuring ACTIVE verbs.  Here's a practice assignment.  I have taken the liberty of changing all of the writer's nice active verbs to be vague and passive.  

Directions: First, locate all of the underlined verbs in the opening paragraph from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men; those are the vague, passive verbs that I have inserted.  Next, replace them with more active, vivid verbs.  Finally, compare your choices to Steinbeck’s to see how you measure up with the master-writer himself!

Chapter 1

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River gets close to

the hillside bank and is deep and green. The water is warm too,

for it has passed twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight

before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden

foothill slopes go up to the strong and rocky Gabilan Mountains,

but on the valley side the water is lined with trees--willows fresh

and green with every spring, having in their lower leaf junctures

the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled,

white, recumbent limbs and branches that go over the pool. On the

sandy bank under the trees the leaves are deep and so crisp that a

lizard makes a great skittering if he is among them. Rabbits get

out of the brush to be on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats

are covered with the night tracks of 'coons, and with the spread

pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer

that are there to drink in the dark.