Shifts in Verb Tense
Shifts in Verb Tense
Shifts in Verb Tense
Play the quick video lesson HERE and click the upper left back arrow to return to this lesson.
Common Core Language Standard 1
Time travel would definitely be an interesting experience. Not so much, however, if the time machine confused past, present, and future. The same is true in your writing. English allows us to change verb tense in the same paragraph and sometimes even within the same sentence, but only if you plan this shift in time. Confused verb tense reflects poor planning and, usually, poor proofreading.
Today’s grammar and usage lesson is on shifts in verb tense. Remember that a verb can mentally or physically act or serve as a state of being.
Now let’s read the grammar and usage lesson and study the examples.
Verb tense is the form of the verb that indicates time. There are three simple verb tenses: the past, present, and future. Examples: Mykah jumped, Mykah jumps, Mykah will jump.
Generally, keep the same verb tense in a sentence or group of related sentences. This is especially important with the past tense. However, when a change in time is necessary, it is certainly appropriate to change tenses, even within the same sentence.
Now circle or highlight what is right and revise what is wrong according to grammar and usage lesson.
Practice: Michael Jackson’s Thriller amaze audiences in 1987, and is an album that still gets plenty of radio play. Undoubtedly that continued for many years in the future.
Let’s check the Practice Answers.
Grammar and Usage Practice Answers: Michael Jackson’s Thriller amazed audiences in 1987, and is an album that still gets plenty of radio play. Undoubtedly that will continue for many years in the future.
Now let’s apply what we have learned.
Writing Application: Write your own sentence using an appropriate change in verb tense.
This writing opener is part of a comprehensive language conventions lesson from the Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary Grades 4‒8 programs.
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