Swan LakeSwan LakeA Grammatical Review of the Year’s A Grammatical Review of the Year’s

Wackiest Ballet!Wackiest Ballet!

Got Grammar?

• Professionals rely on correct grammar to communicate with others.

• Critics review concerts, dance, movie, and theatre performances.

• Sportscasters communicate play-by-plays and commentaries to fans.

• All use writing to reach an audience!

Grammar Basics

• Nouns identify a person, place, living thing, object, or idea.

• Nouns can be singular (one) or plural (more than one).

• Nouns can be common (dog) or proper (Fido).• Verbs tell the physical or mental action that is

taking place.• Adjectives describe a noun.• Adverbs describe a verb.

OvertureMaria Lopez and

James Campbell are two dancers currently starring in the newest production of Swan

Lake.

Sentence Structure

• Prepositions add detail to simple sentences.• They tell

When

Where

How

•Pronouns take the place of a nounMaria sheJames he

Act I

Swan Lake takes place long ago in a fairytale land. Maria, dancing as Odette, opened the ballet in a magical setting. She floated along on her toes with gracewith grace. Act I ended with the with the promise of a beautiful balletpromise of a beautiful ballet!

Grammar

• Transitions tie things together smoothly.

• Transitions move you from one place or time to another, or connect ideas.– later, meanwhile

• Conjunctions let you combine

two sentences to make your

writing shorter.– and, but, or

Act II

In Act II, Maria danced with James for the first time. Their dance began smoothly, but Maria unexpectedly became dizzy and kicked James in the head with the toe of her hard pointe shoe! Later, James stumbled backwards and fell on the scenery causing it to tumble. The curtain fell on Act II. Meanwhile, the audience wondered about the condition of the two stars…

Punctuation

• A colon is used to introduce a list of words

• Quotation marks are placed around words or phrases – to show the exact words someone is speaking– to show the titles of short stories, poems, and

songs

Act III

Soon Maria and James returned to shouts of, “Bravo!” This startled the dancers and caused one girl to lose her balance. As she toppled into the orchestra pit she was overheard yelling, “I’ve ripped my tutu!” but the honking of the now-bent brass section made it difficult to hear her.

Act IVChaos soon followed, and the

beauty of this swan was muddied by the following series of events: the brass musicians jumped away from their instruments causing the other players to scramble away from flying sheet music, the conductor broke his wand and tossed it onstage, Maria stepped on the wand and rolled into James knocking him offstage and into the audience, and the audience members laughed hysterically as security had to break up four fights between cast dancers and musicians.

Finale

All in all it was the most memorable Swan Lake ever performed. One patron was overheard saying, “I suppose we don’t need to swing by the comedy club now!” Maria will be treated for her dizzy spells and James will recover from his injuries. This ballet, however, will not resume performances as scheduled due to repairs being made to the theatre. Advice to the wise: stay home and rent a movie. It’s safer!

Review

• What kinds of nouns are there?

• What types of action does a verb show?

• Why are prepositions useful in writing?

• What kinds of professions rely on using correct grammar?

• What are the uses of quotation marks?

Works Cited• http://www.abt.org/insideabt/

news_display.asp?News_ID=63– News and information regarding the

American Ballet Theater. Photos and music clips available along with scheduled performance information.

• http://www.lebrecht.co.uk/galleries/leb2_ballet.html

– Photos and artwork dedicated to dance.

• http://www.danceart.com/– Clipart and animated pics related to

dance.

• http://www.nycballet.com/nycballet/homepage.asp

– News and information regarding the New York City Ballet.

• http://www.artofballet.com/clip2.html– Clipart and animated pics related to

ballet.