Date post: | 16-May-2015 |
Category: |
Education |
Upload: | nancy-devine |
View: | 1,501 times |
Download: | 2 times |
Absolute phrase theaterAbsolute phrase theaterby Nancy Devineby Nancy Devine
co-director Red River Valley Writing Projectco-director Red River Valley Writing Project
email: email: [email protected]@yahoo.com
blog: blog: http://nancydevine.blogspot.comhttp://nancydevine.blogspot.com
twitter username: nancydevinetwitter username: nancydevineThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United
States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
How does absolute phrase theater work?
In absolute phrase theater, the writer acts as a camera.
He or she writes a sentence, the medium or long shot.
Then he or she moves in to the subject to get a close-up.
Very important….
The close-up, written in a particular way, is the absolute phrase.
It’s called Absolute Phrase Theater for a reason---
When the medium or long shot sentence and the close-up absolute phrase are combined, the result is a sentence that gives a reader a cinematic view of his or her world, where whole and detail are presented nearly simultaneously, much the way we often apprehend the world in which we live.
Let’s look at some examples
Medium/long shot: The dog pointed at the bird’s nest.
Close-up: its right front paw curled up
Result: The dog, its right front paw curled up, pointed at the bird’s nest.
Examples
Medium/long shot: My sister ran across the country road.
Close-up: her tennis shoes making imprints in the gravel
Result: My sister ran across the country road, her tennis shoes making imprints in the gravel.
Exploring the thinking:
Let’s take a good look at an absolute phrase, so you can quickly get to writing many of them. We will use two thinking strategies to help us: form and function.
Form is how something is put together, how it is made, etc.
Function is what something does.
Exploring the thinking (cont’d)
You know that the side image is that of a clock, an alarm clock to be specific. How do you know?
You know a clock’s form. It has a face with numbers or marks that indicate numbers. It has hands which move around its face.
And you know a clock’s function, what it does. A clock tells time.
You use form and function all the time to make decisions about your everyday life.
Now let’s look at the absolute phrases from the example sentences. Here are the sentences again with the absolute phrase in each sentence in bold type Let’s try to figure out the form, how something is made, and the function, what something does, for each of these absolute phrases.
The dog, its right front paw curled up, pointed at the bird’s nest.
its right front paw curled up
form: function:
My sister ran across the country road, her tennis shoes making imprint in the gravel.
her tennis shoes making imprint in the gravel
form: function:
Form?
The form of an absolute phrase is that it is almost a sentence. If you removed the bold print word in each of the sentences below, each would become an absolute phrase.
Her tennis shoes are making an imprint in the gravel.--
her tennis shoes making an imprint in the gravel Its right front paw is curled up.-----its right front paw
curled up.
Function?
The function of an absolute phrase is that, most often, it zooms in on a detail of a noun or pronoun in a sentence. Remember the camera idea.
Tennis shoes are a detail of my sister. Paw is a detail of dog. My sister ran across the country road, her tennis
shoes making imprint in the gravel. The dog, its right front paw curled up, pointed at
the bird’s nest.
Having trouble?
If you’re having trouble, stop and look again at the example sentences.
Try to make an inference about both the form and function of the absolute phrase in each.
An inference is an explanation that comes as a result of looking at a situation, idea, person, etc. It might be helpful to think about the idea of a camera and that the writer, in writing absolute phrases, acts like a camera moving in on his or her subject. Also, think about how the absolute phrase, the close-up, in each of the above sentences is related to the main part of the sentence, the medium or long shot.
Medium shot
Close-up
Medium shot
Close-up
Long shot
Close-up
Absolute phrase theater practice sheet
1. Long/medium shot: Close-up: Resulting sentence:
2. Long/medium shot: Close-up: Resulting sentence:
3. Long/medium shot: Close-up: Resulting sentence:
4. Long/medium shot: Close-up: Resulting sentence:
The EndThe End
Best Boy:Best Boy:
Key Grip:Key Grip:
Gaffer:Gaffer:
Caterer:Caterer:
Special effects:Special effects: