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Pronouns: Fun With Grammar.

Writing Exercise: The paragraph above is mysterious because the italicized pronouns have no antecedents. Replace some of the pronouns with nouns to clarify the mystery, and then add a few sentences to complete the story.

The Mail's In!

It finally arrived in the mail. He grabbed it while they looked on eagerly. She was over in the corner, unable to watch, but they kept leaning over his shoulder, nagging him to get it out of the mail box. She hadn't wanted it to come this way, not with all her hopes resting on it . Her hands shook as she watched him turn it over and examine the handwriting. She had been afraid of what they might do when they learned about them. And now they had sent this. "Can we wait and open it later," she groaned. He looked sharply at her, and then they fell silent while he slowly opened it . "All right, all right! If you must do it now, at least hurry up! This is driving me crazy!"

In class, tell students you wrote a story with this text and invite them to do the same exercise. Then one day get all the versions, without names (anonymous), shuffle them and spread them all out on the teacher's table. As you and your classmates read each paper on the table, guess who wrote it and write that person's name at the bottom. When you've all finished, find your own paper and see how many people guessed you wrote it, and what other names they guessed.

Send your version to this webpage for publication. Thanks!

Taken from here and adapted to our needs.