Passive Presentation

Anne Pillar's comprehensive resource for Year 6 grammar focuses on the use of passive voice to alter the presentation of information within sentences. The PowerPoint and accompanying activities provide a versatile toolkit tailored to the needs of the class, with the teacher deciding the level of support required. The material is structured to include whole-class input, group and paired activities, as well as independent tasks. The content covers the definition of passive voice, contrasting it with active voice, and guides on how to form passive constructions. For instance, the passive voice turns the object into the sentence's subject, making it the recipient of the action. Examples are provided to illustrate the difference, such as "The dog was scared by the cat" in passive voice and "The cat scared the dog" in active voice.

To facilitate understanding, the resource outlines steps to form the passive voice, including the use of the past participle form of the verb and the optional inclusion of the agent with the preposition 'by'. Activities are designed to practice converting sentences from active to passive voice and vice versa. For example, students might turn "John opened the window" into "The window was opened by John" to practice forming the passive voice. The resource also includes a tip to identify passive sentences by adding 'by zombies' to the end of a sentence to see if it still makes sense. Additional challenges encourage students to find examples of the passive voice in their reading books and to rewrite given reports, emphasising the use of either the active or passive voice. The resource is an engaging way to help students grasp the nuances of English grammar and the effects of voice on sentence structure.