7th English Language Arts Unit 18
Adjectives, Types, and Usage
Adjectives are descriptive words that add color and detail to sentences, making them more engaging. Types include descriptive (colorful), quantitative (few), and demonstrative (this). Learning adjectives helps 7th-grade ELA and ESL students improve their descriptive writing. Scaffold by identifying adjectives, model with examples like “The bright (descriptive) sky,” and gradually increase complexity. These vibrant words bring sentences to life, enhancing their storytelling skills.
Unit 18: Adjectives, Types, and Usage
Adjectives are like the colors on a painter’s palette—they bring writing to life and make descriptions vivid and engaging. To begin with, understanding how to use adjectives in sentences and essays is essential because they help readers visualize what you are describing. In other words, adjectives add detail and depth by showing size, shape, color, or quality, making your writing clearer and more expressive.
Moreover, when adjectives are used effectively, they transform ordinary sentences into powerful imagery. For example, a plain sentence like “The cat sat on the mat” becomes more interesting as “The fluffy cat sat on the worn-out mat.” Through this, adjectives help create scenes that readers can easily imagine.
In addition, adjectives go beyond simple description—they evoke emotion and atmosphere. For instance, instead of saying “It was a scary night,” writing “It was a chilling, moonless night with an eerie silence hanging in the air” allows readers to feel the fear and tension. Thus, adjectives not only describe but also stir emotion and set the tone of your writing.
Ultimately, knowing when and how to use adjectives helps you communicate more precisely and make your writing more captivating. Just like a black-and-white sketch transforms into a colorful painting, your words gain life and emotion through adjectives. To practice, try expanding simple sentences—such as “The dog barked”—by adding descriptive adjectives. By doing so, you’ll strengthen your writing skills and discover the true power of descriptive language.
What is an Adjective?
An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun or a pronoun. Simply put, an adjective describes or modifies a noun. The adjective lists that follow each topic are only partial ones.
Descriptive Adjectives: These words bring life to our sentences, describing qualities or states of being, like ‘happy’ or ‘blue.’
Quantitative Adjectives: They help us understand the quantity, such as ‘few,’ ‘many,’ or ‘several.’
Demonstrative Adjectives: These point out specific items, like ‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘these,’ and ‘those.’
Possessive Adjectives: They show ownership, including ‘my,’ ‘your,’ ‘his,’ ‘her,’ ‘its,’ ‘our,’ and ‘their.’
Interrogative Adjectives: Used in questions like ‘which,’ ‘what,’ and ‘whose.’
Indefinite Adjectives: Refer to non-specific items, such as ‘any,’ ‘each,’ ‘no,’ ‘many,’ ‘few,’ and ‘several.’
Proper Adjectives: Derived from proper nouns and usually capitalized, like ‘American’ from ‘America.’
Predicate Adjectives: Follow a linking verb and describe the sentence’s subject, like ‘is tall.’
Compound Adjectives: Made up of two or more words, like ‘well-known’ or ‘high-speed.’
Coordinate Adjectives: Equal adjectives separated by commas or ‘and,’ like ‘a long, winding road.’
Cumulative Adjectives: Build upon each other and are not separated by commas, like ‘a large brown box.’
In other words, each type of adjective plays a unique role in providing more information about the nouns they describe. Proper use of adjectives can make language more descriptive and precise, enriching your writing.
Kinds of Adjectives Explained
Demonstrative Adjectives
Remember, words like this, that, these, and those can also act as demonstrative pronouns. However, as adjectives, they are always followed by nouns.
This book is fascinating. (Close)
That book is boring. (Far)
These cookies are delicious. (Close)
Those cookies are stale. (Far)
Tip: Use “this” or “these” for objects near you and “that” or “those” for objects farther away.
Common Adjectives
These describe a noun in a general way: sharp, flexible, hot, red, hidden, dripping, nice, huge.
Proper Adjectives
Derived from proper nouns and capitalized. For example:
China → Chinese
California → Californian
Mars → Martian
Spain → Spanish
Placement in Sentences
Typically, an adjective comes before the noun it describes:
The big balloon floated over the dark sea.
Alternatively, an adjective can come after a linking verb (predicate adjective):
The balloon was dark.
Adjectives in Three Forms
Positive: Describes something simply (e.g., “tall”).
Comparative: Compares two things (e.g., “taller”).
Superlative: Shows the highest degree among three or more (e.g., “tallest”).
Note: For adjectives with more than one syllable, we usually use “more” for comparative and “most” for superlative (e.g., beautiful → more beautiful → most beautiful).
Benefits of Using Adjectives
Capture the attention and imagination of readers.
Create vivid images by appealing to senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch).
Express emotions and feelings of characters.
Vary word choice to avoid repetition.
Example:
The sun was shining brightly in the clear blue sky.
Practical Tip: Try describing things around you with different types of adjectives. By doing this, your writing will become more versatile and engaging.
