Week 5-- Day 17

Good afternoon!

Today was not a typical class. We started out with our song, Stand by Me, (which we'll have tomorrow, too because we didn't have a "normal" break time). I invited Porter's students to join us because 1) his class was going to join us for the guest speaker anyway 2) the students would have the chance to have class since they came all the way to Clark for class.

We started adjective clauses with a short dictation to give you spelling practice with reductions. As we discussed today, adjective clauses function like adjectives. They describe nouns. Just like a noun clause, they need a subject + verb. Unlike an adjective, an adjective clause will come after the noun being described.

We were able to finish most of the rules: That is for both people and things. Who/whom is only for people; which is only for things. When the noun being described is the subject of the adjective clause, you need to use that/who for people; that/which for things. The teacher who/that has an office next to mine is Priscila. The purse that/which is on the floor is mine.

When the noun being described is the object of the adjective clause, you need to use that/who/whom/[nothing] for people. You need to use that/which/[nothing] for things. The person that/who/whom/ [nothing] I saw on the bus is over there. The coffee that/which/[nothing] I had this morning was too strong.

When the noun being described is the object of a preposition, you have 1 more option: preposition + which (things)/whom (people). The friend that/who/whom/[nothing] I talked to over the weekend lives in Portland. The friend to whom I talked over the weekend lives in Portland. The museum that/which/ [nothing] I went to was interesting. The museum to which I went was interesting.

We'll be going over these rules tomorrow and practice them too. We'll also have our listening assessment for you to check how much you could understand from today's presentation. Ken spoke quickly with a bit of idioms/slang. I decided to use one of his phrases for tomorrow's class-- go to the class web site for a preview.

See you in the morning!