November English Classes and Participial Phrase Openings

Don't forget that in every vocab sentence you write, you must use one of the vocab words in a way that demonstrates you know what the word means. If we can substitute random words in place of the vocab word, we will not give you credit for the vocab word.

For November the stylistic device to use in vocab sentences is the participial phrase opening.

• Opening means it comes at the beginning of the sentence.
• Participial means it uses the participle of a verb. For these sentences, we will use -ing verbs. (Verbs that end in -ed can be used in participial phrases, too, but we will stick with one kind.)
  
• Phrase means it's more than one word.

Here are some examples:

• Walking through the Bloedel Reserve, the visitor stopped to watch the swans on the pond.
• Hitting a line drive, the batter made it to third base.
• Savoring the delicious enchilada, Matt decided he liked Mexican food the best.

It's not a participial phrase if there is just one word:

• Meandering, the visitor stopped to watch the swans on the pond.
• Sprinting, the batter made it to third base.
• Eating, Matt decided he liked Mexican food the best.

It's not a participial phrase opening if it's not at the beginning of the sentence:

• The visitor walking through the Bloedel Reserve stopped to watch the swans on the pond.
• The batter, hitting a line drive and running as fast as possible, made it to third base.
• Matt decided he liked Mexican food the best, savoring the delicious enchilada his friend's mother had served.

Most of all, make sure you don't turn your participial phrase opening into a dangling modifier! Remember, the subject of the sentence (right after the comma) must be the person or thing doing the action of the participle. Here are some bad examples:

• Walking through the Bloedel Reserve, the pond's swans entranced the visitor.
• Hitting a line drive, third base was a reasonable goal and the player ran as fast as he could.
• Savoring the delicious enchilada, the dinner was the best food Matt had ever eaten..