The Sentence That Sounds Right
A Grade 7 class is revising a paragraph about a school garden. Four sentences are on the board:
- "Each of the students water the plants every morning."
- "The team of volunteers were proud of the harvest."
- "Neither the teacher nor the students was ready for the frost."
- "There is many vegetables in the garden." Students must decide which sentences are correct, explain why, and fix the incorrect ones. Several students argue that sentence 2 is correct because "volunteers" is plural and sounds natural. One student insists that sentence 3 is wrong because "students" is plural. The teacher needs a rule-based approach that resolves both disputes without appealing to what "sounds right."
1. Identify which sentences are correct and explain the governing rule for each.
Read the worked answer
Sentence 1 is incorrect. The subject is "Each," which is singular, so the verb should be "waters." The phrase "of the students" does not change the number of the subject.
Sentence 2 is incorrect in formal written English. The subject is "team," a collective noun, and the phrase "of volunteers" modifies it without changing its number. In American formal usage, "the team ... was proud" is the expected form. Students who argue from the plural word "volunteers" are looking at the object of the preposition instead of the subject.
Sentence 3 is correct. With "neither ... nor," the verb agrees with the nearer subject, which is "students," so "was" would be wrong and "were" would be right. Wait: the sentence as written uses "was," so it is incorrect. The correct version is "Neither the teacher nor the students were ready for the frost." The student who objected was right about the plural, but for the wrong reason: the rule is proximity, not the general plurality of the sentence.
Sentence 4 is incorrect. In a "there is/are" sentence, the verb agrees with the noun that follows it. "Many vegetables" is plural, so the sentence should read "There are many vegetables in the garden."
2. Design a two-minute check the teacher can use to see whether students can apply the rule, not just recite it.
Read the worked answer
Give students three new sentences and 90 seconds to mark each as correct or incorrect and write the subject on a line beside it: A. "One of the players have a broken wrist." B. "Neither the buses nor the train was on time." C. "There are several reasons to compost."
Answers: A is incorrect (subject "One"; verb should be "has"). B is correct (nearest subject "train" is singular, so "was" agrees). C is correct ("several reasons" is plural, so "are" agrees).
The check works because each item requires identifying the subject rather than judging by sound. Item B is the discriminator: students who apply proximity get it right, while students who simply look for a plural noun anywhere in the sentence will mark it wrong. Item A catches students who agree with the nearest noun instead of the true subject. Collecting the subject-identification line lets the teacher see the reasoning, not just the final mark.
3. The teacher wants one explanation that covers sentences 1, 2, and 4 without listing three separate rules. Propose it.
Read the worked answer
The unifying idea is: find the head noun of the subject, and ignore any phrase that describes it. In sentence 1, the head noun is "Each"; "of the students" describes it. In sentence 2, the head noun is "team"; "of volunteers" describes it. In sentence 4, the head noun is "vegetables," which follows the verb in a "there" sentence, so the verb must match it.
A classroom version: "Cross out every phrase that starts with of, and cross out there. What is left is the real subject. Match the verb to that word." Applying it: "Each water" becomes "Each waters"; "The team were" becomes "The team was"; "is many vegetables" becomes "are many vegetables."
This single procedure handles all three items and also gives students a physical action (crossing out) that makes the abstract notion of a head noun concrete. Sentence 3 needs a separate note, because "neither ... nor" has its own proximity rule and should be taught alongside this one rather than folded into it.