My goal for this week was to get through three units in 5th Grade Reading, Grammar, and Vocab and I didn’t even make it through one. 😒 To be fair, I did manage to watch ten videos, read nine articles, and finish seven exercises, but they were all super simple so I don’t think it’s anything to be too proud of. Not to be the guy who makes excuses, but I did get my butt kicked this past week with the flu. It started Sunday night and had me pretty well KO’d Monday to Friday. I was tied up Saturday and Sunday, as well, so I didn’t work on KA then, either. So, considering all the road blocks that came up this week, I suppose my progress on KA could have been worse, and I’m happy I managed to get some work done. That said, I’m concerned/annoyed at how long it’s taking me to get through ELA, so I’m REALLY hoping I can speed things up! I have PTSD about taking 6.5 years to get through the Math section of KA. I definitely don’t want that to happen again with ELA. 🙅🏻♂️
Here’s everything I made notes on this week:
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
5th Grade Reading, Grammar, and Vocab
Unit 5 – Grammar: Pronouns
Lesson 1 – Building Knowledge
Article 1 – Glossary: Pronouns
The first thing I did this week was read an article on pronouns. I was thinking about writing down each of the sub-definitions you see above so that I could better memorize them, but I found most of the descriptions difficult to understand, so it didn’t seem like writing them down would make much of a difference in helping me to memorize them. But, I figured I’d screenshot them and add them to this post just for funsies. (Also, I looked at the upcoming videos/articles/ exercises and saw that they covered the types of pronouns in the glossary, so I decided I’d wait to make any notes until going through that content.)
Lesson 2 – Pronoun Case, Person, and Number
Video 1 – Subject and Object Pronouns
Before watching this video I read through another article that gave more details about pronouns. The first notable thing it explained was about antecedents, which are the noun or noun phrase that a pronoun refers back to. So, for example, in the sentence, “We have neighbours, but I’m not sure if they are cool,” the antecedent that the word they is referring to is the word neighbours.
The article then went on to explain the difference between first, second, and third person pronouns. First person would be I, me, we, and ours. Second person would be you, yours, and yourself. Third person would be he, she, it, and them.
The article wrapped up by talking about what came up in this video which was the difference between subject and object pronouns. I’m still a bit fuzzy on the precise definitions of the two, but I’m pretty sure a subject pronoun is when the pronoun refers to the person/thing the sentence is about, and an object pronoun is used to relate the subject to a noun in the sentence. (Reading that back, that’s probably very confusing and could be wrong. 😅) For example, you might write, “She sent an email on her computer.” But you wouldn’t write, “Her sent an email on she computer.” I’m still a bit hazy on the precise definition of subject and object pronouns, but it has to do with that type of thing.
Article 2 – Pronouns in Compound Subjects and Objects
This article talked about compound subject vs compound object pronouns. Honestly, it was a bit confusing but the screenshot above that talks about when to use I versus when to use me was very informative. I’d always been a bit confused on why/when to use I vs me, so it was nice to read through this article and — after 36 years of being alive — finally get some clarity on it. 😮💨
Lesson 3 – Possessive and Indefinite Pronouns
Video 2 – Indefinite Pronouns
This video got into what are called indefinite pronouns which are pronouns that refer to an indefinite number of people or things such as any, anybody, each, everyone, and nobody. David then mentioned that there are only a few pronouns in all of English that only refer to two people/things. They’re known as Dual pronouns, and three examples are both, neither, and either.
Lesson 4 – Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns
Video 1 – Reflexive Pronouns
In the video, David introduced what are known as reflexive pronouns. As you can see in the second screenshot above, reflexive pronouns are used when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same thing. I think I understand the gist of what this means which is good, but maybe more importantly, I’m starting to find the way that sentences are constructed with a subject and object more and more fascinating. I feel like I’m starting to intuitively grasp how verbs are used to construct meaning between the subject and the object, and am starting to be able to “see” what the types of words are in each sentence (as in I recognize the words as being nouns, pronouns, verbs, or adverbs). This is starting to make the way sentences are constructed seem more interesting to me. I also wonder if there’s a parallel between this and knowing/recognizing the difference parts of a math equation, like constants, coefficients, terms, expressions, etc. which, knowing their definitions, helps me better understand equations at a glance.
Lesson 5 – Relative Pronouns
Video 1 – Relative Pronouns
This final video introduced what are called relative pronouns. The relative pronouns in English are who, whom, whose, that, and which. An article I read after watching this video said, “The relative pronoun refers back to a specific noun called an antecedent and usually appears immediately after the antecedent.” In my mind, there’s a subject (a noun) that has some quality, characteristic, or something about them/it that needs to be explained or identified, and the relative pronoun is the word that’s used to link the two together.
And that was it for this week. Not terrible, but not great either. I’m sure I’ll finish off this unit this upcoming week—hopefully early in the week—and will hopefully be able to finish off at least the following unit, Grammar: Verbs. However, it’s just as long as this unit on pronouns, meaning there’s quite a lot of content for me to get through. Plus (not to make excuses before this week has even begun), the windows in my apartment are being replaced this week, meaning I have to stay somewhere else from Friday to next Tuesday which will make studying a bit trickier than usual. Nonetheless, I’m fired up to get through this course ASAP, so I’m optimistic I’ll be able to get through at least a unit and a half this week. As always, fingers crossed I can make it happen! 🤞🏼