Nari S. Kirk

Strunk & White Exercises

(1.) Describe 5 members of your family and how they are related in at least five sentences. These sentences must each feature a restrictive or nonrestrictive clause with the correct punctuation (Rule 3).

(2.) Describe your favorite book or film in several sentences in which you must use “a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, [and] an amplification” (Rule 7).

(3.) Write a paragraph vignette in which you always put statement in negative form. Then rewrite the paragraph, putting all statements in “positive form” (Rule 15). Be prepared to comment on the different effects of this change.

(4.) Get into groups of 3 and each of you pass one person to the right the one-page short stories you brought to class today. In this first round of exchange, “omit needless words” with the goal of shortening the story by one-third of the word count (Rule 17). If you have time, then pass the stories one person more to the right and try to reduce the story to one half of the original word count. Be prepared to comment on the results.

(5.) Take the half-page narrative memoir you brought to class today and start transforming it into an 8-10 line narrative poem. Keep sentence structures correct, but “omit needless words” to achieve the compactness and punch of a poem (Rule 17).