Going Absolutely Out of Order

This grammar lesson will help you learn to use adjectives out of order and absolutes!

Hello, Sentence Makers,

I recently read Harry Noden’s amazing book, Image Grammar: Teaching Grammar as Part of the Writing Process. Noden’s approach to teaching grammar centers on five basic grammar moves he calls brush strokes. He argues that when students learn these brush strokes, they flex more of their grammatical options. He writes, “Just as a painter combines a wide repertoire of brush stroke techniques to create an image, the writer chooses from a repertoire of sentence structures” (Noden 4). The five brush strokes are: 1.) the participle, 2.) the absolute, 3.) the appositive, 4.) adjectives out of order, and 5.) action verbs (Noden 4).

In this lesson, I want to share Noden’s approach for teaching writers how to use adjectives out of order and absolutes. (If you are interested in learning about the other 3 brush strokes---or grammar moves---there are lessons available to you on this website.)

Adjectives Out of Order:

To begin, in Noden’s Image Grammar Activity Book, he explains that adjectives out of order are two consecutive adjectives placed after the noun they describe (10).

Let me give you an example. Here is a sentence with adjectives in order:

The creative and skillful baker built a six-tiered lemon chiffon wedding cake with buttercream frosting.

Here is the same sentence with adjectives out of order:

The baker, creative and skillful, built a six-tiered lemon chiffon wedding cake with buttercream frosting.

Let me give you another example. Here is a sentence with adjectives in order:

The tall and graceful ballerina leaped through the air.

Here is the same sentence with adjectives out of order:

The ballerina, tall and graceful, leaped through the air.

Both versions of these sentences are correct. Both provide writers with different options for creating an image of the baker or the ballerina. Noden’s point is that writers have options, and writing your adjectives out of order is one of them.

Absolutes

Let’s look at another brush stroke Noden describes in his Image Grammar Activity Book. Like out of order adjectives, absolutes are another way for writers to zoom in and add more detail or information to a sentence. Noden defines an absolute as a noun followed by an –ing word or phrase (3). Writers use absolutes to create variety and to combine sentences.

Let me show an example. Read these two sentences.

The design was breathtaking. The baker, creative and skillful, built a six- tiered lemon chiffon wedding cake with buttercream frosting. Now, let’s turn one of these sentences into an absolute so that the two sentences are combined as one:

The baker, creative and skillful, built a six-tiered lemon chiffon wedding cake with buttercream frosting, the design breathtaking.

The absolute in this sentence is: the design (noun) breathtaking (--ing word). You can see how the absolute adds more detail about the baker’s creation being described in this sentence.

Let’s look at another example. First, read the two sentences below:

The ballerina, tall and graceful, leaped across the stage. Her toes were pointing toward the ceiling and her arms were extending by her side like wings.

Now, let’s turn one of these sentences into an absolute so that the two sentences are combined as one.

The ballerina, tall and graceful, leaped across the stage, her toes pointing toward the ceiling, her arms extending by her side like wings.

You could also move the absolutes to the beginning of the sentence:

Her toes pointing toward the ceiling, her arms extending like wings, the ballerina, tall and graceful, leaped across the stage.

You could also use one absolute at the beginning and the other at the end of the sentence, like this:

Her toes pointing toward the ceiling, the ballerina, tall and graceful, leaped across the stage, her arms extending like wings.

The absolutes in this sentence are: her toes (noun) followed by pointing toward the ceiling (--ing phrase), and her arms (noun) followed by extending like wings (--ing phrase). You can see how both absolutes add more detail about the ballerina being described in this sentence.

As with all of Noden’s brush strokes---or grammar moves---, writers can use absolutes and adjectives out of order in the same sentence. Noden reminds writers that much like artists use multiple colors and varying paint brushes to make their art works, writers use multiple brush strokes—or grammar moves—to create their sentences and paragraphs (Noden, Image Grammar Activity Book 14).

You try it!

This activity below is an adaptation of Harry Noden’s “Activity 1: Paint with Absolute Brush Strokes” and his “Activity 4: Paint with Adjectives Out of Order” found inside his Image Grammar Activity Book (5;11). I have adapted his directions to help you apply these grammar moves to one of the source-based essays you are writing for one of your college classes.

Step one: Choose a source-based essay you are writing for one of your college classes. You will use this activity to add more detail and/or information to your existing essay.

Step two: Read the directions for this activity all the way through before you begin.

Step three: Search the internet or YouTube for an image or video that connects to your essay topic. For example, you could find an image or video of a person or group of people who are connected to or impacted by the topic you are writing about in your essay. Or, maybe you can find an image or a video of a place connected to or impacted by the topic you are writing about in your essay. Be sure to keep track of where you find your images and/or videos. You will need to cite the source in your essay.

For example, when my students and I studied the earth’s water crisis, we looked at this image of an abandoned fishing boat found in the sands that were once the fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea. In the 1960s, The Soviet Union, diverted the rivers that fed the Aral Sea to irrigate crops grown in the desert nearby, crops like rice and cotton. By 2007, the Aral Sea had been reduced to 10% of its original size. The amount of water drained over those years equaled the amount of water found in Lake Eerie and Lake Ontario. The Aral Sea disaster is considered one of the world’s worst environmental disasters (Leahy 29).

My students use photographs like this one to add a memorable image to their source-based essays about the water crisis.

FIG A: Leahy, Stephen. Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts about How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products. Firefly Books, 2014: 29.

Step four: After you have found your image or video, write a basic sentence about the image. For example, here is my basic sentence about the image of the fishing boat shown above.

The abandoned fishing boat bakes on the hot sands of what used to be the Aral Sea.

Step five: Make a list of details that capture your interest as you zoom in and look more closely at the image. Don’t worry about writing your ideas into sentences yet. Just create a list of details you discover as you examine the photograph again and again.

For example, here is my list of details I found inside the photograph of the abandoned fishing boat:

Rusted sides

Parched

gutted

Tumbleweeds and hot sand where there once was water

Ghostly dark windows

Pieces of the boat lie on the ground like limbs

Seems to be sinking into the sand

Forgotten and alone

Windows are all blown out, empty like eye sockets

Set against the clear blue sky

Step six: Use some of these details to create adjectives out of order to add to your basic sentence.

Here is an example:

The abandoned fishing boat, gutted, parched and alone, bakes on the hot sands of what used to be the Aral Sea.

Gutted, parched and alone are the adjectives out of order in this sentence.

Step seven: Next, zoom in on the photograph again, focusing on actions you see happening in the image. Write sentences to describe the actions you see in your image. For this step, it is helpful to write in complete sentences, like I do in my example below.

Here is my list:

The boat stands alone.

Windows are broken.

The once white sides are bleeding with rust.

The middle of the boat is gutted.

A boat is going nowhere.

Rusted sides are turning to dust.

No water keeps the boat alive.

A person could walk through the gutted middle of the boat.

Step eight: Use some of the details from your list in Step seven to experiment with absolutes you might add to your basic sentence. Remember that an absolute is a noun followed by an –ing word or phrase. Your absolute can come at the beginning or the end of the sentence.

Here is an example:

No water keeping it alive, the abandoned fishing boat, gutted, parched and alone, bakes on the hot sands of what used to be the Aral Sea.

Or, here is another option: Its sides bleeding rust, an abandoned fishing boat, gutted, parched and alone, bakes on the hot sands of what used to be the Aral Sea.

Step nine: After you have a sentence you like, be sure to introduce the source for your photograph with a sentence that establishes the title and author of the source in which your photograph was found.

Let me show you an example by introducing the source for the photograph of the abandoned ship in the Aral Sea.

In his book, Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, Stephen Leahy features a shocking image of a fishing boat (29). No water keeping it alive, the abandoned fishing boat, gutted, parched and alone, bakes on the hot sands of what used to be the Aral Sea (Leahy 29).

Step ten: Share your final sentences with a partner in class. As you read your sentences aloud, narrate your thinking. Explain the choices you made for your sentences and how those choices impacted your writing. OR, you can record yourself as you narrate the thinking behind the sentences you wrote using adjectives out of order and absolutes.

Step eleven: Congratulate yourself on a job well done! Then, practice using these two brush strokes in other parts of your essay. You can add them to any sentence in your essay.

Reflect on what you learned!

After you have completed this activity, create thoughtful responses for each of the questions below.

1. What was it like for you to use adjectives out of order and absolutes? Did these writing brush strokes work well for you? Why or why not?

2. How might you use adjectives out of order and absolutes in other parts of your college writing?

3. What was the most challenging part of completing this activity? What questions did it raise for you?

4. What surprised you most as you completed this activity?

Works Cited

Noden, Harry R. Image Grammar Activity Book. Perfection Learning Corporation, 2007.

Noden, Harry R. Image Grammar: Teaching Grammar as Part of the Writing Process, 2nd edition. Heinemann, 2011

Leahy, Stephen. Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products. Firefly Books, 2014: 29.