Participles

Participles

Middle School

Today's Lesson

• Introduction to Participles
• Topic overview
• Topic overview

Learning Objectives

• Identify participles in sentences and understand them as verbs acting as adjectives.
• Analyze how participles add description and detail to make writing more vivid.
• Apply your knowledge by correctly using participles to describe nouns in sentences.

Introduction to Participles

Have you ever wanted to make your writing more descriptive and exciting? What if you could turn an action into a description? That's exactly what participles do! A participle is a special form of a verb that acts like an adjective to describe a noun or pronoun. Think about the difference between 'The bird sings' and 'The singing bird sat on the branch.' The word 'singing' is a participle! It comes from the verb 'sing,' but here it describes the bird. Learning to use participles will add style and detail to your sentences, turning them from simple statements into vivid images.

Let's Learn with an Example

Let's look at this sentence:

The crying baby was comforted by her mother.

My first step is to look for words that might be verbs acting as adjectives. I see the word 'crying,' which comes from the verb 'to cry.'

Next, I ask myself what 'crying' is doing in the sentence. Is it the main action? No, the main verb is 'was comforted.' The word 'crying' is actually describing the baby. What kind of baby? The crying baby.

Because 'crying' is a verb form that's modifying a noun ('baby'), I know it's a participle. It adds extra information and paints a clearer picture for the reader.

So, the participle is crying, and it describes the noun baby. This is how a verb can do the job of an adjective!

Lets Practice Together

Multiple Choice

In the sentence, 'The smiling child waved to her friends,' which word is the participle?

• smiling

• waved

• friends

• child

Lets give it
a Try

Multiple Choice

Identify the participle in the following sentence: 'The broken vase lay on the floor.'

• broken

• vase

• lay

• floor

Multiple Choice

Which sentence correctly uses a participle to describe the noun 'dog'?

• The barking dog alerted the whole neighborhood.

• The dog was barking at the mail carrier.

• Barking is what the dog does all day.

• The dog, which was barking, ran in circles.

Summary

• A participle is a verb form that acts as an adjective.
• Present participles usually end in -ing, like running.
• Past participles often end in -ed or -en, like broken.
• Participles make your writing more descriptive and dynamic.
• Use them to paint a clearer picture in the reader's mind.