Page 10 - ELA_CA_HighSchool_Sampler_Flipbook

ACTIVITY 1.4 continued
5 Link parallelism to syntax as a way to create powerful sentences for effect. Use excerpts from the speeches to discuss parallelism at the word, phrase, and clause level.
6 Direct students to the excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities. Students may complete this individually or with a partner. Review the results as a class. Then have students complete the rest of the activity. After students have completed the other examples, you may want to group students to compare results.
14 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 9
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14 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 9
ACTIVITY 1.4
continued
Parallel Structure
My Notes
Faulty parallelism: Javier spends all of his time either working on his music or he updates his social media page.
Correct parallelism:
Faulty parallelism: A skillful computer coder must have a logical mind, debugging
skills, and he or she must be able to solve problems.
Correct parallelism: Power of the Parallel
Parallel structure can be a deliberate and convincing rhetorical technique in speeches or dramatic, powerful writing. It provides balance and repetition, allowing the audience to easily concentrate and quickly comprehend what the speaker says.
1. Read the opening paragraph from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and underline the parallel structure.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
2. Read these sentences from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first Inaugural Address and underline the parallel structure. Try to identify the grammatical forms that are parallel.
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
“It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, [and] unequal.”
3. Read these sentences from the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln and underline the parallel structure.
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.”
“... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.