Making an Appositive

Experience!

What do you notice?

Catherine the Great, my Russian grandma, is already awake.

-- Cari Best, Three Cheers for Catherine the Great! (2003)

Why use appositives?

Sometimes when we write, we want to add new information without creating a new sentence.

For example…

Clementine is funny.

She is in third grade.

She lives in New York.

Clementine, a funny third grader, lives in

New York.

Let’s ask ourselves, what is being renamed??

Avon, a rather small snail, read a book every day.

So what is an appositive??

• noun or pronoun -- often with modifiers -- set beside another noun or pronoun to explain or identify it

Keith, the boy in rumpled shorts and shirt, did not know he was being watched as he entered room 215 of the Mountain View Inn.

Placement of appositives

• An appositive phrase usually follows the word it explains or identifies, but it may also precede it.

So let’s practice using appositives

• I watched her playing ladushky with Mimmo so he wouldn’t cry.

• Ladushky is a clapping song.

• The clapping song is Russian.

When do we use punctuation?

• Remember non-essential clauses/phrases?– Commas

• When there is an essential information contained in the appositive, then you don’t need commas.

Give One – Get One Game1. Every person has a game card.2. You must share three appositive sentences with

three different people.3. You must have three sentences from three different

people, and you must share three different appositive sentences from your own flipbook.

4. After you receive a sentence from someone, write that person’s name underneath the sentence.

5. You have 4 minutes to accomplish this mission!