Activity: Analyzing Text

Analyzing features of language in these texts can highlight the challenges of academic language. These two excerpts come from books that young students might check out of neighborhood libraries.

Text #1: The Good Worms Do
		The earthworm is often called nature's plow. Some kinds of earthworms are said to make burrows down as far as eight feet in the ground. The holes bring air to the roots of plants. They make the earth more crumbly, so that the good rain water can trickle deep down. And all the while they are "plowing," they are building good soil. Everything that an earthworm eats in digging his hole is changed to rich manure. The earthworm really digests the earth. (p.16)
		Earthworms, by Dorothy Childs Hogner (Thomas V. Crowell, 1953).

Vocabulary

• In this passage, the earthworm, a living creature, is metaphorically referred to as a plow, a man-made tool.
  
  
  • metaphor: the use of a word or phrase normally used designating one thing to designate a very different thing, based on common features, or elements of meaning, that the two things share.
    
    
• What features do earthworms and plows have in common? In order for students to understand the similarities between the two, they need to understand that the text is built around general background knowledge about farming—that is, on a farming schema.
  
  
• Are there other word choices in the passage that depend on background knowledge about farming as well? Why is the noun rain modified by the adjective good? Why is manure described as rich?
  
  
• Why is the earthworm called nature's plow and not just a plow? Why is the verb "plowing" enclosed in quotation marks in the passage?

Grammatical structures and devices

• This passage contains several verbs in the passive voice. Students are often encouraged to avoid passive voice in their writing. Why is it used in this passage? What would be the effect if the passive sentences were rewritten in active voice?
  
  
• This passage contains several complex sentences, including these:

1. "They make the earth more crumbly, so that the good rain water can trickle deep down."
2. "And all the while they are plowing, they are building good soil."

Identify the main (independent) clause and the subordinate (dependent) clause in each sentence. Which clause is first, and which is second? What is the relationship between the actions or ideas expressed in the main and subordinate clauses in each sentence?

(Sentence 1: The main clause is the cause of the effect indicated in the subordinate clause.
Sentence 2: The subordinate clause indicates an action that is co-occurring with the main clause.)

• Note that the second complex sentence begins with and, so it may look like a coordinate sentence. The and here is functioning as a cohesive device to link this sentence to the previous one, rather than a coordinating conjunction linking the clause in which it occurs to the following one.

Cohesive devices

• Notice how pronouns like they and his sometimes stand in for full noun phrases like some kinds of earthworms and an earthworm's. Why isn't the full noun phrase used each time? What does the use of pronouns achieve?
  
  
• What does the initial They refer to in the sentence "They make the earth more crumbly"? Might this be unclear? Why? How could this sentence, and/or surrounding ones, be revised for greater clarity?
  
  
• Consider the sentence And all the while they are "plowing," they are building good soil." How does the sentence sound without the and? How does the passage as a whole sound without it? Why is and used here?

Rhetorical devices

The author of this passage discusses two specific activities that earthworms do—burrowing into the ground and digesting the earth. Each activity is accompanied by explanation of why it is beneficial. Why does the author include these very specific activities and explanations?   next