®
THE LANGUAGE ARTS MAGAZINE
Name: ________________________________________________________ Date: ______________
THE LAZY EDITOR: “What’s Up, Dude?” • SKILL: Dangling Modifiers
Managing Your Modifiers
Incorrect: Having finished the essay, the movie was turned on.
The way this sentence is written makes it sound as if the movie finished the essay. “Having finished the
essay” is supposed to modify a person, but that person is not mentioned.
Correct: Having finished the essay, Rebecca turned on the movie.
Directions: Read each incorrect sentence below. First, underline the dangling modifier in the sentence. Then
rewrite the sentence so that it is correct. You may need to add words or commas. We did the first one for you.
1. Not having studied, the exam was extremely difficult.
not having studied, found the exam to be extremely difficult.
Correct:__Cameron,
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Distracted while on the phone last night, the cookies burnt in the oven.
Correct: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Chore day was completely unbearable, having stayed up late playing Xbox.
Correct: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Packing for my vacation, my dog Bruno watched sadly the whole time.
Correct: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. After reading Divergent, the movie version is going to be awesome!
Correct: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ _ _________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Totally exhausted, the trail down the mountain was grueling.
Correct: ___________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________
SCHOLASTIC SCOPE ACTIVITY • FEBRUARY 2014
USES: COPY MACHINE, OPAQUE PROJECTOR, OR TRANSPARENCY MASTER FOR OVERHEAD PROJECTOR. SCHOLASTIC INC. GRANTS SUBSCRIBERS OF SCHOLASTIC SCOPE PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS PAGE FOR USE IN THEIR CLASSROOMS. ©2014 BY SCHOLASTIC INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
A modifier is a word or group of words that modifies, or describes, another word or group of words in a sentence.
A dangling modifier describes something not clearly stated in the sentence. For example: