✏️ WritingGrade 3Lesson 3
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Expand Sentences with Adjectives and Adverbs

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Learning Objectives

  • 1Add adjectives to describe nouns
  • 2Add adverbs to describe verbs
  • 3Expand a plain sentence so it is more vivid and specific
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Mini Lesson

A plain sentence tells the reader what happened. An expanded sentence tells them what happened, how it looked, and how it felt. Two types of words do that job: adjectives and adverbs.

Adjectives — Describe Nouns

  • A noun is a person, place, animal, or thing.
  • An adjective tells what kind, how many, or which one.
  • Plain: The dog barked.
  • Expanded: The small, brown dog barked.
  • Ask: What kind of dog? What color? How big?

Adverbs — Describe Verbs

  • A verb is an action or state.
  • An adverb tells how, when, where, or how often the action happens.
  • Plain: The dog barked.
  • Expanded: The dog barked loudly.
  • Many adverbs end in –ly: quickly, carefully, softly, fiercely.

Expand in Two Steps

  • Step 1: Find the nouns — add adjectives before them.
  • Step 2: Find the verbs — add adverbs near them.
  • Result: The small, brown dog barked loudly at the old wooden gate.
Plain sentence expanded with adjectives and adverbsTwo boxes: the top shows a plain sentence about a dog, the bottom shows the same sentence expanded with adjectives and adverbs highlighted.Expanding a SentencePlain sentence:The dog barked at the gate.tells what happened — but nothing moreExpanded sentence:The small, brown dog barkedloudly at the old wooden gate.adjectives (blue) + adverb (orange) added
A plain sentence (top) expanded with adjectives in blue and an adverb in orange (bottom) to create a more vivid, specific sentence.
Adjective and adverb reference chartTwo side-by-side panels: left shows adjective examples describing nouns, right shows adverb examples describing verbs.Describing WordsAdjectivesdescribe NOUNSwhat kind / how manytinyfiercegoldenmuddythreewoodenAdverbsdescribe VERBShow / when / wherequicklysoftlycarefullyalwaysnearbyfiercely
Adjectives (blue) describe nouns — what kind, how many. Adverbs (orange) describe verbs — how, when, or where.
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Ask yourself: What type of word is an adjective and what type of word is an adverb — and what does each one describe?

Vocabulary
Adjective
A word that describes a noun — tells what kind, how many, or which onee.g. The tiny yellow butterfly landed.
Adverb
A word that describes a verb — tells how, when, where, or how oftene.g. She ran quickly down the hill.
Noun
A person, place, animal, or thinge.g. dog, park, elephant, book
Verb
An action or state-of-being worde.g. run, jump, sing, is
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← Lesson 2: Use Strong Opening SentencesLesson 4: Link Ideas with Transition Words →